Analysis of the effects of the hidden node problem in IEEE 802.15.7 uplink performance

Abstract

IEEE 802.15.7 is a physical and MAC layer standard for visible light communication (VLC). A slotted CSMA/CA MAC procedure is defined in the standard to coordinate optical channel access for multiple wireless devices. This CSMA/CA process does not provide any hidden node avoidance mechanisms, thus potentially leading to severe performance degradation in the presence of hidden nodes due to collisions. In this paper, we analyze the effect of hidden nodes on a VLC network in the star topology. We implement a simulator and analyze VLC performance in terms of parameters like end-to-end goodput and packet loss rate. The impact of the hidden node problem in network performance is evaluated by comparing simulation results.