A Dynamic Link Adaptation Algorithm for IEEE 802.11a Wireless LANs

In this paper we present a simple but powerful dynamic link adaptation mechanism for wireless LANs, which is based on the IEEE 802.11a standard. Using this method, a transmitter is able to detect whether the quality of the link is improving or deteriorating, and based on this information to switch to a higher or lower transmission rate, respectively. For determining the link quality, the transmitter employs only information that is available locally. Therefore, the proposed method can be implemented without changes or enhancements to the current IEEE 802.11 standard. The efficiency of our method is investigated and evaluated by means of simulations.