Study of multi-link channel access without simultaneous transmit and receive in IEEE 802.11be networks

Korolev, Nikolay; Levitsky, Ilya; Startsev, Ivan; Bellalta, Boris; Khorov, Evgeny

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3225978

Study of multi-link channel access without simultaneous transmit and receive in IEEE 802.11be networks

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Korolev N, Levitsky I, Startsev I, Bellalta B, Khorov E. Study of multi-link channel access without simultaneous transmit and receive in IEEE 802.11be networks. IEEE Access. 2022 Dec 1;10:126339-51. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3225978

Abstract

Native support for multi-link operation is a key novelty of the future Wi-Fi 7 technology defined by the IEEE 802.11be standard, which is currently under development. With the 6 GHz band recently granted for Wi-Fi operation, the novel multi-link feature enables simultaneous usage of multiple wide channels. Thus, it multiplies the capacity of Wi-Fi networks well beyond the 30 Gbps target of Wi-Fi 7. However, not all stations can simultaneously transmit and receive (STR) information on several links because of cross-channel interference. That is why it is proposed to synchronize the transmissions on different channels. The presence of legacy stations not supporting the multi-link operation raises many issues related to multi-link channel access performance and fairness. This paper evaluates various channel access approaches considered in the context of the Wi-Fi 7 non-STR operation and discusses how to organize channel access in multi-link Wi-Fi 7 congested networks to be both efficient and fair, even in the presence of legacy stations.