Performance Study of Frame Aggregation Mechanisms in the New Generation WiFi

The new generation WiFi (Widely Fidelity), which is called 802.11ac, has the goal of reaching at least 1 Gbps on bands below 6 GHz. This is why, the standard has been extended with new features at both PHYsical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers level. One of the key features of MAC layer is the ability of aggregating frames in order to reduce temporal overheads that significantly harm the performance of 802.11 networks. Three forms of aggregation exist, namely Aggregate MAC Service Data Unit (A-MSDU), Aggregate MAC Protocol Data Unit (A-MPDU) and hybrid A-MSDU/A-MPDU Aggregation (A-hybrid). In this paper, we study the impact of Frame Aggregation Mechanisms (FAMs) for improving the overall throughput of 802.11ac networks. Furthermore, we highlight the need of PHY/MAC cross-layer communications for optimizing the wireless bandwidth utilization. Simulation results demonstrate the gains offered by the FAMs.