Opportunistic Polling for Capacity-Region-Aware MAC in Wireless Networks with Partial CSI

Abstract

In this paper, we propose two opportunistic polling algorithms for capacity-region-aware medium access control (MAC) in wireless networks with partial channel state information. Based on the probability density function of the unknown channel gain, the proposed algorithms opportunistically exploit the capacity region of a multiple access channel in network information theory and benefit from successive interference cancellation techniques. Simulation results show that both algorithms could increase the network throughput. Furthermore, the active opportunistic polling algorithm could increase the network throughput by more than 30%.