Multilink Operation in IEEE 802.11be Wireless LANs: Backoff Overflow Problem and Solutions

Area of Science:

• Wireless communication
• Network protocols

Background:

• IEEE 802.11be introduces multilink operation for enhanced throughput.
• Synchronous channel access with backoff compensation improves multilink device performance but faces challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and address the backoff count overflow problem in enhanced synchronous channel access with compensation.
• To propose and evaluate solutions for mitigating this overflow issue in IEEE 802.11be networks.

Main Methods:

• The study analyzes the backoff count overflow problem aggravated by repeated compensations.
• Four mitigation strategies are proposed: limiting transmissions, backoff values, using main link contention windows, and balancing links.

Main Results:

• Comparative evaluations in dense and random deployment scenarios were conducted.
• The proposed solutions effectively mitigate the backoff count overflow problem.

Conclusions:

• The developed solutions successfully address the identified overflow issue.
• Performance in terms of throughput and latency is improved while maintaining coexistence with legacy devices.