Interference Aware Full-Duplex MAC Protocols Design and Evaluation for the Next WLANs

Recently the in-band full-duplex in wireless communication has evolved into a mature technology since the self-interference cancellation technique is able to support fullduplex capability. Moreover, some researchers focus on the full-duplex media access control (MAC) protocol design for wireless local area networks (WLANs). However, it is assumed that all the node have full-duplex capability in most study of the full-duplex MAC, and it is not practical since stations (STAs) may be half-duplex in the network while access point (AP) has full-duplex capability. In this paper, a full-duplex MAC protocol named interference aware full-duplex MAC (IAFM) is proposed for the next generation WLANs on the assumption only AP has full-duplex capability. In IAFM protocol, there are three mode including direct scheduling mode for normal full-duplex transmission, interference collection mode for interference collection usage and none full-duplex mode for legacy transmission. Beside, direct scheduling mode and interference collection mode are described in detail, and none full-duplex mode obeys the legacy MAC protocol in WLANs. The power control mechanism is also discuss in this paper. The simulation results shows that in saturation condition IAFM protocol with power control almost double the throughput of legacy MAC protocol in WLANs.