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MAC layer performance of the IEEE 802.15.7 visible light communication

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 TRANSACTIONS ON EMERGING TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016)
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/ett.3015

RESEARCH ARTICLE

MAC layer performance of the IEEE 802.15.7 visible

light communication standard
Parvaneh Shams1 , Melike Erol-Kantarci2 and Murat Uysal1*
1 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ozyegin University, Istanbul 34794, Turkey
2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699, USA

ABSTRACT
Visible light communications (VLC) is a high-speed wireless communication technology that has recently emerged. VLC
uses the illumination infrastructure to meet broadband needs of bandwidth-hungry devices. Its high data rate, immunity
to electromagnetic interference, ability to operate in an unlicensed band and high reuse factor position VLC as a strong
alternative to existing communication technologies. The physical and medium access control (MAC) layers of VLC have
been standardised in IEEE 802.15.7. Yet, theoretical performance bounds of the MAC layer have not been explored in
detail so far. In this paper, we derive Markov-based performance bounds for the MAC layer of IEEE 802.15.7. We provide a
thorough study of throughput, delay, power consumption, collision probability, transmission probability, access probability
and packet discard probability using analytical analysis and simulations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

*Correspondence
M. Uysal, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ozyegin University, Istanbul 34794, Turkey.
E-mail: murat.uysal@ozyegin.edu.tr

Received 19 July 2015; Revised 5 November 2015; Accepted 10 December 2015

1. INTRODUCTION the order of tens to hundreds of kb/s. PHY II is intended

Visible light communication (VLC) [1, 2] uses light-
emitting diode (LED)-based illumination infrastructure for
communication purposes. LEDs can be modulated at very
high speeds without noticeable effect to human percep-
tion. Recent experimental VLC studies [3, 4] have in
fact demonstrated data speeds more than 3 Gb/s. VLC
offers inherent advantages over radio frequency counter-
parts, such as immunity to electromagnetic interference,
operation in unlicensed visible light band (390–740 nm)
and high degree of spatial confinement allowing a high
reuse factor. Potential applications of VLC [5–9] include
a wide range of short-range and medium-range communi-
cation applications including wireless local, personal and
body area networks, vehicular networks and machine-to-
machine communication among many others.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) recognised the potential of this emerging tech-
nology and introduced the IEEE Standard 802.15.7 [8],
which was approved in June 2011. This standard defines a
physical layer (PHY) and medium access control (MAC)
layer for VLC and promises data rates sufficient to sup-
port audio and video multimedia services. It supports three
PHY types, namely, PHY I, PHY II and PHY III. PHY
I is designed for outdoor usage with low data rates in
for indoor usage with moderate data rates in the order
of tens of Mb/s. PHY III is designed for VLC systems
with multiple light sources and detectors. It uses colour
shift keying and supports data rates in the order of tens of
Mb/s or higher. The MAC layer acts as an interface to the
PHY layer and involves tasks such as beacon management,
channel access, guaranteed time slot management, frame
validation, acknowledged frame delivery, association and
disassociation of the device. The IEEE 802.15.7 MAC pro-
tocol uses four types of channel access methods, namely,
(1) non-beacon mode without CSMA/CA; (2) non-beacon
mode with CSMA/CA; (3) beacon-enabled mode without
CSMA/CA; (4) beacon-enabled mode with CSMA/CA.
A comprehensive PHY performance evaluation of the
IEEE 802.15.7 is presented in [9], and there are sev-
eral studies focusing on modulation [10, 11] and resource
allocation [12]. IEEE 802.15.7 MAC layer performance
was not explored in depth except some sporadic works
[13–17]. In [13], the performance of beacon-enabled mode
of 802.15.7 in terms of throughput and delay is studied
through computer simulations. The focus in [14] and [16]
is on the modification of MAC layer to introduce prior-
ity mechanism and cooperative communication rather than
a thorough performance evaluation of the original stan-
dard. In [15], throughput and packet discard probability

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

are investigated based on a Markov chain model. However,
this model lacks the time parameters such as packet length
and backoff duration. Furthermore, it is only for a special
case of backoff stage numbers and does not provide good
scalability. We have evaluated a limited set of performance
metrics in our preliminary study [17].
In this paper, we present a comprehensive performance
evaluation of throughput, delay, power consumption,
collision probability, transmission probability, access prob-
ability and packet discard probability based on Markov
modelling. We consider beacon-enabled mode with
CSMA/CA in 802.15.7 MAC layer. Although the IEEE
802.15.7 standard provides the option to use beaconless
modes and it also allows operation without CSMA/CA,
such modes become useful for light traffic loads and when
hidden node problem is not observed frequently. Beacon-
enabled mode with CSMA/CA allows for accommodating
dense traffic and dense node deployment. For this reason,
we primarily focus on modelling the beacon-enabled mode
with CSMA/CA in saturated environments. We model
the CSMA/CA mechanism of IEEE 802.15.7 standard
with a Markov chain and derive closed-form expressions
for network performance metrics including throughput,
delay, power consumption, collision probability, transmis-
sion probability, access probability and packet discard
probability. The derived expressions are further validated
via simulations.
This paper is organised as follows: In Section 2, we
introduce the IEEE 802.15.7 MAC protocol and describe
the MAC functionality to provide a background for the fol-
lowing sections. In Section 3, we present the Markov chain
model and introduce the main expressions. Section 4 is
devoted to the system hypothesis, study of these assump-
tions and applicability. This section discusses performance
metrics, provides numerical results of outage analysis and
compares them with simulation results. Section 5, evalu-
ates the performance of the proposed scheme and presents
simulation results. Finally, Section 6 concludes our paper.
2. IEEE 802.15.7 MAC
The IEEE 802.15.7 standard supports three network
topologies as illustrated in Figure 1. In the peer-to-peer
topology, one of the two devices in an association acts as

Figure 1. Supported medium access control topologies in IEEE 802.15.7 [8].

Figure 2. The superframe structure of IEEE 802.15.7 [8]. CAP, contention access period; CFP, contention-free period; GTS, guaranteed
time slot.

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

the coordinator. In the star topology, the communication is
established between devices and a single central controller
referred to as the coordinator. In the broadcast topology,
the device can transmit a signal to other devices with-
out being associated to any device or having any devices
associated to them. The communication in this mode is
unidirectional, and the destination address is not required.
The standard allows the optional use of a superframe
structure (Figure 2). The format of the superframe is
defined by the coordinator. The coordinator can dedicate
some slots of the superframe to applications with certain
quality of service requirements. These are called ‘guar-
anteed time slots’ and form the contention-free period
(CFP). All contention-based transactions must be com-
pleted before the CFP begins. Therefore, the CFP always
appears at the end of the superframe immediately follow-
ing the contention access period [15]. The superframe is
bounded by beacons sent by the coordinator. Beacons are
used in networks that either require synchronisation or sup-
port for low-latency devices. If the network does not need
synchronisation or support for low-latency devices, it can
select to turn off the beacon for normal transfers. However,
the beacon is still required for network discovery.
As mentioned before, the standard uses four types of
channel access mechanism, depending on the network con-
figuration. These are beacon-enabled or non-beacon modes
with the option of whether having or not CSMA/CA. In
beacon-enabled mode, nodes use the slotted random chan-
nel access mechanism where the backoff slots are aligned
with the start of the beacon transmission. A device that
has data to transmit first locates the boundary of the next
backoff slot, then waits for a random number of backoff
slots and senses whether the channel is idle or not. If the
channel is idle, the device begins transmitting on the next
available backoff slot boundary. It is also possible that car-
rier sense mechanism is not active because it is optional.

Figure 3. Random access flow chart with four modes: non-beacon mode without CSMA/CA; non-beacon mode with CSMA/CA;
beacon-enabled mode without CSMA/CA; and beacon-enabled mode with CSMA/CA. CCA, clear channel assessment; ACK,
acknowledgement.

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal
In that case, the node starts transmission right after back-
off. A successful reception and validation of a data or
MAC command frame can be optionally confirmed with an
acknowledgement. Acknowledgement and beacon frames
are sent without using a random access mechanism. Non-
beacon-enabled network uses an unslotted random channel
access mechanism where each time a device wishes to
transmit data, it first waits for a random backoff period
and then transmits its data frame. The same carrier sense
principles are applied with CSMA/CA.
In Figure 3, we present the flow chart of CSMA/CA
mechanism with beacon-enabled mode. Before a new
packet transmission, the node maintains two variables [8]:
NB and BE, which are initialised as 0 and macMinBE,
respectively. NB is the number of times the backoff pro-
cedure has been repeated while attempting the current
transmission. BE is the backoff exponent, which is related
to how many backoff periods a device shall wait before
attempting to access a channel. BE is initialised with a
value of macMinBE. The node waits for a random number
of backoff periods specified by the backoff value. Then, it
performs the clear channel assessment (CCA) to sense the
channel, and if it is idle, transmission stage starts. The basic
time unit adopted here is the backoff period, that is, a time
slot of length UnitBackoffPeriod. A time slot is defined as
the minimum time needed to send the smallest data to a
device, and it is fixed. The number of slots in a VLC MAC
frame is communicated in the MAC header. Thus, a single
device or user can have access to more than a single slot for
sustained data transfer in the frame, if there are slots avail-
able. The frame type and the number of slots are indicated
in the MAC header.
If CCA is active, the node senses the channel for certain
amount of symbols. If the channel is busy, BE and NB are
both incremented by one where the maximum value for
BE is macMaxBE. Their number of backoff is limited to
macMaxRABackoff. If the value of NB is less than or equal
to macMaxRABackoff, the access algorithm will perform a
random backoff as shown in Figure 3. If the value of NB is
greater than macMaxRABackoff, the access algorithm will
terminate with a channel access failure status.
For slotted access, the MAC sublayer will first initialise
NB and BE and then locate the boundary of the next backoff
period. This sublayer also delays for a random number of
backoff periods in the range 0 to 2BE  1 and then requests
that the PHY layer performs a transmission or optionally a
CCA. In a slotted random access method, the transmission,
or CCA if active, will start on a backoff period boundary.
Table I. Markov chain states.
L A : : :  1 0 1, : : : , LA
0, : : : , M – CCA
s(t) M C 1, : : : , 2M C 1 – Transmit
2M C 2, : : : , 3M C 2 ACK not received c .t /
ACK, acknowledgement; CCA, clear channel assessment.
In an unslotted system, the transmission, or CCA if active,
will start immediately.
The network can operate in either acknowledged (ACK)
or unacknowledged modes [18]. In ACK mode, a packet
transmitted after a successful channel access procedure can
either be received successfully or experience a collision. In
the NO_ACK mode regardless of whether the transmission
is successful or ends in collision, ACK will not be received
by the sending node, and thus, the node immediately con-
tinues the CSMA/CA procedure on a new packet [13]. In
the ACK mode, a successful transmission is accompanied
by the reception of an ACK, which has a fixed length of
backoff periods. The ACK is fed back to the sender node
after a minimum time, which allows the node to switch
from transmission mode to reception mode. The ACK is
expected by the sender node to be received before a fixed
maximum time of macAckWaitDuration. If the ACK is
not correctly received after this time, then a collision is
declared [15].
3. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
3.1. Markov model
Markov models have been used in modelling medium
access in IEEE 802.15.4 [17, 19, 20]. In this paper, the
behaviour of the IEEE 802.15.7 node is modelled by a
two-dimensional discrete time Markov chain, which rep-
resents different states of the node. The state of two-
dimensional Markov chain is described by two random
variables .s.t/, c.t// at a given time slot t, as shown
in Figure 3. s.t/ respectively represents the transmission
stage, the ACK stage and the backoff CCA stage for s .t/ 2
fM C 1, : : : , 2M C 1g, s .t/ 2 f2M C 2, : : : , 3M C 2g and
s .t/ 2 f0, : : : , Mg. Depending on the value of s.t/, c.t/
acquires different significance as follows (Table I).
 If s .t/ 2 f0, : : : , Mg, the node can be either in
backoff state or in CCA mode. If the node is in back-
off state, c.t/ can take any value in the range of
f0, : : : , Wi  1g, depending on the value of backoff
counter, which is selected randomly.
 If the node is in CCA mode, the minimum of c .t/ is
zero while its maximum value is Wi  1. Here, Wi D
2minfmacMinBECi,macMaxBEg is the size of the backoff
window at backoff stage s .t/ D i 2 f0, : : : , Mg. In
this case, if 1 6 c .t/ 6 WM  1, it determines the
value of backoff counter, while c .t/ D 0 corresponds
to the CCA state.
c(t)
LA C 1, : : : , Lp  1 Lp , : : : , WM  1
Backoff
–
ACK received – –
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal
Figure 4. Markov model for slotted CSMA/CA per single transmission attempt. CCA, clear channel assessment; ACK,
acknowledgement.
 If s .t/ 2 fM C 1, : : : , 2M C 1g, that is, the node is in
transmission state, the value of s .t/  M  1 deter-
mines the backoff stage of the node. In this case, c .t/
determines the number of slots of the packet, which
have been already transmitted.
 If s .t/ 2 f2M C 2, : : : , 3M C 2g, that is, the node is
in ACK state, the value of s .t/  2M  2 determines
the backoff stage of the node. In this case, c .t/ D 0
determines transceiver switch state (i.e. switching the
transceiver of the node from TX mode to RX mode).
If 1 6 c .t/ 6 LA , the node is receiving the ACK,
and c .t/ determines the number of slots of the ACK,
which have been already received. The ACK duration
is assumed to be LA .
 If LA 6 c .t/ 6 1, the node is not receiving the
ACK, and c .t/ determines the number of slots, which
the node has already waited for the ACK.
When a new packet arrives, the node goes to the first
backoff stage, denoted by s .t/ D
 0. The node
 can pick any
value randomly in the range of 0, 2BE  1 D .0, Wi  1/
as illustrated in Markov model (Figure 4). If the channel
is idle, and the CCA state is successful, the node enters
the transmission state. Because the probability of back-
off counter taking any value within 0, 2BE  1 is equally
likely, the new packet enters each of these states with
probability 1=W0 where W0 D 2BE . When the counter
reaches zero (i.e. c .t/ D 0), the node senses the chan-
nel. If it is sensed idle (with probability 1  ˛ because
the probability of sensing the channel busy is denoted by
˛), the node starts transmission; otherwise, it goes to the
next backoff stage (i.e. s .t/ D 1). After packet transmis-
sion, the node switches its transceiver from TX mode to
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
RX mode, in order to receive ACK. If the ACK is received
during MacMaxAckWait (with probability Pco denoting the
probability that the transmission of a given node ends up
in a collision), the node sets NB and BE to their default
values and waits for a new packet arrival. If the ACK
is not received during MacMaxAckWait (with probability
1  Pco ), the nodes assumes packet collision and goes to
the next backoff stage. If the backoff stage exceeds NB, the
node discards the packet. It should be noted that the value
of ˛ is the same for different backoff state levels. In real-
ity, it depends on the backoff stage where N nodes perform
the sensing.
3.2. Calculation of state probabilities
Let bi,k D limt!1 P fs .t/ D i, ‹c .t/ D kg denote the
probability of being in state fs.t/ D i, c.t/ D kg. In a net-
work consisting of N nodes, the probability that a given
node spends a randomly picked slot performing CCA is
defined as
XM
'D bi,0 (1)
iD0
The probability that the transmission of a given node ends
up in a collision is given by
Pco D 1  .1  '/N1 (2)
The probability of channel access failure at each backoff
stage is
y D .1  ˛/Pco C ˛ (3)
In the following, we write all state probabilities in terms of
the probability of being in the first backoff stage (i.e. b0,0 ).
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

Specifically, the probability of being in each of the CCA which can be written in terms of b0,0 as
states (i.e. bi,0 / is related to b0,0 as
bi,0 D .˛ C .1  ˛/Pco /i b0,0 16i6M (4) bk,j D .1  ˛/.Pco /.˛ C .1  ˛/Pco /k2M2 b0,0
(10)
On the other hand, the probability of being in each trans- 2M C 2 6 k 6 3M C 1, LA 6 j 6 1
mission state that is related to the probability of being in
the CCA state of the same backoff stage (i.e. bkM1,0 ) is So far, we have related all state probabilities to the state
given by probability of b0,0 . Total probability of the Markov model
bk,j D .1  ˛/bkM1,0 states must be equal to 1; therefore, we have
(5)
M C 1 6 k 6 2M C 1, 0 6 j 6 Lp  1 X WX
3MC2 i 1 M W
X Xi 1

bi,k D bi,k
which can be further related to b0,0 as
iD0 kDLA iD0 kD0
(11)
bk,j D .1  ˛/.˛ C .1  ˛/Pco /kM1 b0,0 p 1
X LX
2MC1 3MC2
X LA
X
(6) C bk,j C bk,j D 1
M C 1 6 k 6 2M C 1, 0 6 j 6 Lp 1
kDMC1 jD0 2MC2 jDLA
The probability of being in ACK state is related to
the probability of being in transceive switch state (i.e. This expression consists of three parts. The first term on the
bkM1,0 ) as right side is relevant to backoff and CCA states of the node.
The second and third terms correspond to transmission and
bk,j D .1  Pco /bkM1,0 ACK states, respectively. Replacing (3), (5), (7) and (9) in
(7)
2M C 1 6 k 6 3M C 1, 1 6 j 6 LA (11), we have

p 1
X WX
3MC2 i 1 M W
X Xi 1
.Wi  k/yi X LX
2MC1 3MC2
X X LA
bi,k D b0,0 C .1  ˛/ykM1 b0,0 C .1  ˛/ .1  Pco /yk2M2 b0,0
Wi
iD0 kDLA iD0 kD0 kDMC1 jD0 2MC2 jD1
3MC2
X 1
X 3MC2
X
C .1  ˛/ Pco yk2M2 b0,0 C yk2M2 .1  ˛/tAck
2MC2 jDLA 2MC2
M
X  
Wi C 1  
D b0,0 yi  C .1  ˛/ yi  Lp C LA .1  Pco / C tAck C LA Pco
2
iD0 (12)
Setting (12) equal to 1 yields

1
b0,0 D    h
1.2y/MC1 1yMC1 1
 i (13)
2aMinBE1  12y C 1y  2 C .1  ˛/ Lp C LA .1  Pco / C tAck C LA Pco

which can be further related to b0,0 as Replacing (1) in (13), we obtain

M
X M
X 1  yMC1
'D bi,0 D yi b0,0 D b0,0
1y
iD0 iD0
(14)
1  yMC1
D    h
1.2y/MC1 1yMC1  i
.1  y/ 2aMinBE1  12y C 1y  12 C .1  ˛/ Lp C LA .1  Pco / C tack C LA Pco

bk,j D .1  ˛/.1  Pco /.˛ C .1  ˛/Pco /k2M2 b0,0 In order to derive network state, another equation is
2M C 1 6 k 6 3M C 1, 1 6 j 6 LA needed, which is acquired by considering the interactions
(8) between N nodes. Henceforth, we use the notation (Table
The probability of being in no-ACK state is related to the II), introduced in [18], to refer the events that take place.
probability of being in transceive switch state as By taking into account the interactions among N nodes, ˛
can be expressed as the probability of at least one transmis-
bk,j D Pco bkM1,0
(9) sion, when without loss of ˇgenerality, N th node performs
2M C 2 6 k 6 3M C 2, LA 6 j 6 1 CCA, that is, ˛ D Pr.Tx>1 ˇCfNg /

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

Table II. Notation of events.

Notation Event description

C  fN g The event that at least node with index N is transmitting

C  fi g The event that at least node with index i (the index of the node) is in CCA mode
Tx > i This notation illustrates the event that at least i nodes are transmitting
Tx  fi g The event that at least node with index i (the index of the node) is transmitting
Txi This exactly i nodes are transmitting, and N  i are not transmitting

This expression can be written as the union of the The third term in (17) corresponds to the probabil-
transmission probability of other nodes as ity of union of other nodes being in transmission state,
while node k where k D 1 is transmitting and node


  N2
X N1 p where p D N is in CCA state. If there are two or
˛ D Pr Tx>1 jCfNg D
nC1 more transmissions in a particular slot, the transmissions

nD0
 (15)
must start at the same slot, because devices that trans-
nC1
 Pr [ Txfkg jCfNg mit later would detect earlier transmissions and would
kD1
not start transmitting. Starting transmission at the same
which can be further rewritten as time slot moreover requires being in the CCA state
at the same time. Thus, the conditional probability is
X

N2
N1

  equivalent to
˛D Pr Txf1g
nC1
nD0 (16) !

 nC1
[
nC1
 Pr [ Txfkg jTxf1g , CfNg Pr Txfkg jTxf1g , CfNg
kD1 kD1
! (20)
nC1
[
By using the total probability theorem, we can write the
D Pr Cfkg jCf1g , CfNg
second term in (16) as
kD1
   
Pr Txf1g D Pr Txf1g jTx1  Pr .Tx1 /
  (17) The probability that n nodes simultaneously perform
C Pr Txf1g jTx>2 .Pr .Tx>2 / CCA where n D Œ1, : : : , N  2 and node k where
k D 1 and node p where p D N are in CCA state
which can be written in terms of the collision probability is the probability that N  2 nodes are in one of the
Pco as CCA states and remaining N  2  n nodes are not in
2 CCA state:
p 1
  X LX
2MC1
Pr Txf1g D .1Pco / 4 Pr .s D i, c D jjTx1 / nC1
!
[
iDMC1 jD0 Pr Cfkg jCf1g , CfNg
3 (21)
3MC2
X LA
X kD1
C Pr .s D i, c D jjTx1 /5 D ' .1  '/N2n
n
iD2MC2 jD0
2 3
p 1
X LX
2MC1
C Pco  4 Pr.s D i, c D jjTx>2 /5 Replacing (18) and (21) in (17), we have
iDMC1 jD0
(18)

N2
X

N1 
˛D ' nC1 .1  '/N2n .1  ˛/ Lp C .1  Pco /  .LA C tAck /
nC1
nD0 (22)
 h i
D .1  ˛/ Lp C .1  Pco /  .LA C tAck / 1  .1  '/N1

which yields
Using (4)–(10), we can rewrite (18) as
" # 1
N1
˛
   ' D 1 1  
Pr Txf1g D .1  ˛/ '. Lp C .1  Pco /  .LA C tAck / .1  ˛/ Lp C .1  Pco /  .LA C tAck /
(19) (23)

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

3
(22) and (23) are solved numerically to derive network 3MC2
X LA
X
state and determine ˛ and ' values. Using these values of C Pr .s D i, c D jjTx1 /5
˛ and ', network metrics can be evaluated as explained in iD2MC2 jD0
next section. 2 3
p 1
X LX
2MC1
C Pco  4 Pr .s D i, c D jjTx>2 /5
4. PERFORMANCE METRICS 
iDMC1 jD0

D .1 Pco /  Lp . .1˛/ ' C .LA CtAck /  .1  ˛/'

4.1. Throughput C Pco  Lp  .1  ˛/ '

D .1  ˛/ '  Lp C .1  Pco /  .LA C tAck /
The per node throughput S0 is defined as the fraction of
(26)
time that a node spends in successful transmission. On
the other hand, the network throughput S is defined as The network transmission probability is the probability
the fraction of time that the network spends in success- that one or more nodes are transmitting in the network.
ful transmission, that is, the fraction of time in which This probability is equal to the probability of at least one
exactly one node is transmitting. A node would have a node is transmitting in the network. Therefore, we have
successful transmission in time t, if it is the only node per-
˚ 
forming CCA in some time slot in the range t0 2 Œt  Ptx0 D Pr Tx>f1g
.Lp C LA / C tAck , t  1, and finds the channel idle. The N1 nC1
!
X N  [
probability of a node being only one performing CCA is D  Pr Txfkg
nC1
'.1  '/N1 . Furthermore, the probability of sensing the nD0 kD1
channel idle is .1  ˛/. If both conditions are met, the node N1 nC1
!
X N  [
holds the channel for Lp C LA slots. Then, the per node D  Pr Txfkg
nC1
throughput is nD0 kD1
N1 nC1
!
  ˚   X N  [
S0 D Lp C LA  Pr t0  2 Lp C LA C tAck , D nC1  Pr.Txf1g /  Pr Txfkg
 nD0 kD1
t  1 : Cf1g \ CF1 (24)
  N1
X N 
D Lp C LA '.1  '/N1 .1  ˛/ D nC1  ' nC1 .1  '/N1n .1  ˛/
nD0

Because all of the network nodes are similar, the network Lp C .1  Pco /  .LA C tAck /
throughput is N times the throughput of each network 
D ' .1 '/N1 .1˛/ Lp C.1  Pco /  .LA C tAck /
node, that is,
n
N1
X
N
 '
  nC1 
S D NS0 D N Lp C LA ' .1  '/N1 .1  ˛/ (25) 1'
nD0
 
D .1  ˛/ Lp C.1Pco /  .LA CtAck / 1 .1 '/N
(27)
4.2. Transmission probability

The per node transmission probability corresponds to 4.3. Collision probability

fraction of nodes that attempt transmission at a ran-
dom time. This probability can be inspected in two dif- The per node collision probability is considered as the
ferent cases. First, the successful transmission, which probability that at a given time in which a given node
results in ACK, and unsuccessful transmission, which is is transmitting, one or more other nodes are transmitting,
not followed by ACK. Because of symmetry, this prob- too. This is possible only if these nodes perform CCA
ability is the same for all network nodes. Using the simultaneously, that is,
Markov chain model, this probability can be calculated  ˇ   ˇ 
as follows: Pco D Pr Tx>2 ˇTxf1g D Pr C>2 ˇCf1g \ CF
(28)
˚  This probability can be considered as the complement of
Ptx0 D Pr Txf1g
˚  the case, where only one node is in CCA state and is
D Pr Txf1g jTx1 .Pr .Tx1 / given by
˚ 
C Pr Txf1g jTx>2  Pr.Tx>2 / ˚ 
2 Pr C>2 jCf1g \ CF D 1  .1  '/N1 (29)
p 1
X LX
2MC1
D .1  Pco /  4 Pr .s D i, c D jjTx1 /
The network collision probability is defined as the prob-
iDMC1 jD0
ability that in a given time that at least one node is

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

E .delay \ TX : suc/
D D E .DelayjTX : suc/ D
Pr .TX : suc/
M
1 X
D PrfDelayjTX : suc at stage igPrfsuc at stage ig
1  Pd
iD0
M
(" i ! i
(33)
1 X X Wk  1 X i  k ik
 
D C k ..1  ˛/ Pco / ˛ k Lp C tack C LA
1  Pd 2
iD0 kD0 kD0
# )
 
C Lp C tack C LA Œ.1  ˛/ .1  Pco / yi 

transmitting, one or more other nodes are also transmit- The probability of successful transmission .Pr.TX : suc//
ting. This probability can be considered as the complement is equal to the fraction of packets that are not discarded.
of the case in which only one node is transmitting, while Total probability is used to express TX : suc in terms of
we know that at least one node is transmitting. It is .TX : suc at stage i/ for i D 0 : M. In the last line of
defined as (33), the first term shows the average number of slots spent
Pr fTx1 \ Tx>1 g performing backoff in stage i for a packet that is success-
Pco D Pr fTx>2 jTx1 g D 1 (30) fully transmitted; the second term shows the average time
Pr.Tx>1 /
spent in unsuccessful attempts prior to i, and the third term
demonstrates required time for a successful packet trans-
N The
 probability of one node transmitting is equal to
times the probability of one specific node transmitting, mission. A packet has i possible transmission attempts;
1
which is determined by using the Markov model. In fact, therefore, it can be transmitted successfully after colliding
the probability of the node being in a transmission or ACK in up to i attempts.

states is Lp C tAck C LA '.1  ˛/, and the probability
of not transmitting by other nodes is .1  '/N1 . Hence, 4.6. Power consumption
we have
˚  Average power consumption for each node is the power
Pr fTx1 g NPr Txf1g spent to transmit packets successfully and unsuccessfully,
Pco D 1  D1
Pr.Tx>1 / Pr.Tx0 / which is given by
 
N LA C Lp C tAck '.1  '/N1 .1  ˛/
D 1  
.1 ˛/ Lp C.1Pco / .LA CtAck / 1.1'/N P D E .P jTX : suc / Pr .TX : suc/
(34)
(31) C E .P jTX : discard / Pr .TX : discard/

4.4. Packet discard probability

Packet discard probability is the fraction of generated pack-
ets that are not transmitted successfully. A combination of
channel access failure and collision can cause a packet to
be discarded. In the following equation, i determines the
number of channel access failures, and M C 1  i deter-
mines the number of collisions. Changing i from 0 to M C1
takes into account the different combinations that lead to
packet discard. Hence, packet discard probability can be
calculated as
X   multiplied by average power consumed in idle mode,
MC1 MC1
Pd D iD0 i ˛ i .Pco .1  ˛//MC1i
(32)
D .˛ C .1  ˛/Pco /MC1 D yMC1
4.5. Delay
Delay for a successfully transmitted packet is considered
as the total number of time slots required from the time
that packet reaches the head of the line until the ACK is
received successfully.
The consumed power depends on whether a node is idle,
receiving or transmitting. The transceiver is idle when the
node is in backoff state. It is in reception mode when
the node is either performing CCA or waiting for or
receiving an ACK, and it is in transmission mode only
when the node is transmitting a packet. The node uses
Pidle , Prx and Ptx , respectively, for idle, receiving and
transmitting modes.
The power consumption for successful transmis-
sion is the average number of slots spent in backoff
plus the average number of slots that the node
spends in CCA multiplied by average power con-
sumed in reception mode, plus the average power
consumed
 in previous  unsuccessful transmissions
Lp Ptx C tack Pidle C LA Prx plus the power required 
for successful transmission Lp Ptx C tack Pidle C LA Prx .
In order to normalise the power, it is divided by
the total time spent for successful transmission,
which yields

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

(" # )
P
M P  P
i i  
P
i wk 2 i
kD0 2 Pidle C tcca Prx C k ..1  ˛/Pco /k ˛ ik k  U .1  ˛/ .1  Pco / yi (35)
iD0 kD0 kD0
PTX:suc D
PDelay C PTx:suc  yMC1

Similarly, the average power consumed for a discarded
packet is equal to the average number of slots spent
in M C 1 backoff stage multiplied by packet discard
probability and power consumed in this mode, plus the
average time spent in CCA multiplied by packet discard
probability and power consumed in this mode, plus the
average unsuccessful transmissions in previous M stage
multiplied by packet discard probability and power con-
sumed in this mode, plus the average power spent in
the stage M C 1 multiplied by collision probability and
the probability that the node reaches the stage M C 1.
Again, in order to normalise the power, it is divided
by the total time spent for discard procedure. Therefore,
we have
" #
P
M
wk 2
2 Pidle C .M C 1/Prx C
kD0
PTX:discard D
on the backoff stage. This difference is particularly notice-
able between the first backoff stage .i D 0/ and the rest
of the backoff stages. This can be explained by observing
that a node in the first backoff stage on average draws a
smaller backoff value than other nodes, which are compet-
ing with it. Additionally, as explained in [20], although the
probability of a node being in the first backoff stage is not
small (a node goes through the first backoff stage once per
every attempt), the joint probability of two nodes being in
the first backoff stage is very small. This means that a node
in the first backoff stage is given better opportunities than
nodes in any other stage. Thus, it is very likely for it to
find the channel idle. Figure 5 shows the simulation results
obtained for ˛ in different backoff stages. In order to derive
P
M
.M k Mk k
k /..1  ˛/Pco / ˛  U/yMC1 C U .1  ˛/ Pco yM
kD0
(36)
PDelay C PTx:discard  yMC1

Thus, the total power consumption iPtotal D PTX:discard
CPTX:suc s.
4.7. Sensing probabilities for different
backoff stages
Let ˛i denote the probability of sensing the channel busy
during the ith CCA stage. As earlier mentioned, in the
Markov chain model (Figure 4), it was assumed that ˛i D
˛ for all i 2 f0, : : : , Mg. This greatly simplifies the analy-
sis. However, as shown in Figure 5, ˛ is in fact dependent
the probability of sensing the channel busy via simulation,
the number of times, which a node senses the channel busy,
is divided by total number of times, which the node senses
the channel.
5. SIMULATION RESULTS AND
DISCUSSIONS
In this section, we present a simulation study using MAT-
LAB to assess the main network parameters (throughput,
delay, power consumption, collision probability and packet
discard probability) and confirm our analytical findings.
We consider beacon-enabled mode with CSMA/CA and
use the parameters presented in Table III, which are spec-
ified in the IEEE 802.15.7 standard [8]. In Figures 6–11,
we depict both derived expressions and simulation results.
In general, we observe that analytic results are in good

Table III. MAC sublayer parameter setting [8].

Constant Value

aBaseSlotDuration 60
aNumSuperframeSlots 16
aUnitBackoffPeriod 20
macBeaconOrder 15
MAC layer macMaxBE 5
macMinBE 3
macNumAcks 3
Beacon length 30 (0.5 slot)
macMaxCSMABackoffs 0–5
Figure 5. Probability of sensing clear channel assessment busy
Number of nodes 2–15
.˛/ for different backoff stages.

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal

agreement with simulation results. However, there is some bility increases, and throughput and per node transmission
noticeable difference particularly for small network sizes. probability drops, which is expected because the growth in
There are several reasons for this behaviour. First, through- network size impacts access to shared medium.
put is calculated over the length of simulation. For less We also evaluated power consumption and delay for
number of nodes, their backoff periods naturally have more varying network size. The average power consumption,
impact on the calculations because of the relatively low
number of nodes and limited simulation duration.
The number of nodes .N/ is one of the key parame-
ters of network scalability of the VLC system. In Figure 6,
we analyse the impact of N on the per node throughput,
which is the fraction of time that a node spends in suc-
cessful transmission. Here, N ranges from 2 to 15. As it
can be seen, networks with low number of nodes achieve
a high per node throughput. Beyond eight nodes, the per
node throughput drops below 50%. It is also observed that
there is relatively less match between analytical and sim-
ulation findings for network size below six nodes. There
are several reasons for this behaviour. First, throughput is
calculated over the length of simulation. For less number
of nodes, their backoff periods naturally have more impact
on the calculations because of the relatively low number
of nodes and limited simulation duration. In addition, we Figure 7. Per node transmission probability under varying net-
present the per node throughput where the averaged results work size.
involves more samples for the denser networks. Figure 7
presents the per node transmission probability, which is
the fraction of nodes that attempts transmission at a ran-
dom time. This includes both successful and unsuccessful
transmission attempts. In simulations, transmission prob-
ability increases as the number of nodes increase. This is
due to unsuccessful attempts in a congested network. Sim-
ilar to per node throughput, relatively low number of nodes
impacts the averaged results in simulations. A small devi-
ation is observed between analytic and simulation studies.
The average collision probability and packet drop are
shown in Figures 8 and 9, respectively. The increase in col-
lision probability as the number of nodes increases agrees
with our results on throughput and per node transmission
probability. Similarly, increasing number of nodes causes
discard probability to increase significantly. As a result,
we observe that as the collisions increase, discard proba- Figure 8. Collision probability under varying network size.

Figure 6. Per node throughput under varying network size. Figure 9. Packet drop probability under varying network size.

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. (2016) © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 P. Shams, M. Erol-Kantarci and M. Uysal
Figure 10. Power consumption (in unit transmission power)
under varying network size.
Figure 11. End-to-end delay (in time slot unit) under varying
network size.
shown in Figure 10, decreases with increasing network
size. The reason for this behaviour is the average waiting
time increase when collisions occur, because as the offered
traffic increases, nodes spend more time in backoff state
rather than transmission state. Because transmission incurs
more energy consumption than the idle backoff stage,
nodes consume less power as the size of the network grows.
Finally, Figure 11 shows network delay that grows with
increasing network size. The reason for such behaviour is
twofold. First, as the number of nodes increase, offered
load increases. Second, increasing number of collisions
and increasing backoff durations incur additional delay.
6. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we discussed the behaviour of performance
metrics of IEEE 802.15.7 beacon-enabled mode and slotted
CSMA/CA mechanism. We used a generalised approach
that is based on the Markov chain model to analyse net-
work performance and provide the mathematical model
that considers the slotted CSMA/CA mechanism with
beacon-enabled mode in saturation environment. The key
network parameters are throughput, transmission probabil-
ity, delay, packet drop and collision probability that show
the network performance. From the numerical results, it
indicates that the probability of sensing the channel free
can significantly vary from one backoff stage to another.
Likewise, it has been shown that the probability of sensing
the channel free is dependent of the number of nodes that
are sensing it. The implications of these assumptions have
been discussed, and their impact on the characterisation of
the various networking metrics has been assessed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is carried out as an activity of ‘Centre of
Excellence in Optical Wireless Communication Technolo-
gies (OKATEM)’ funded by Istanbul Development Agency
(ISTKA) under Innovative Istanbul Financial Support Pro-
gram, 2015. The statements made herein are solely the
responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the views of
ISTKA and/or T.R. Ministry of Development.
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