Performance Evaluation of Coordination Function Selection in Multi-AP Coordination for Next-Generation Wireless LANs

In recent wireless local area networks (WLANs), high-density access points (APs) have been considered for high-speed communications. However, networks with a high-density of APs can cause interference between basic service sets (BSSs). To address this issue, the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11bn Task Group is considering to introduce multi-AP coordination (MAPC), in which multiple APs work together. Each coordination function has different performance in terms of instantaneous throughput and transmission overhead, hence coordination function selection may improve performance. In this work, we evaluate the performance of coordination function selection. We propose models for estimating the instantaneous throughput and transmission overhead of each coordination function. Simulations show that coordination function selection can improve performance compared with the case in which all APs use a single coordination function. Furthermore, we show the optimal coordination function pattern is considered to be related to the distance between APs and stations in the BSSs. Coordination function selection contributes to the improvement of MAPC performance in various environments.