TP2 REPORT

Point coordination function (PCF)

By

RBIH BOULANOUAR
GROUP 03
PCF Overview

Point coordination function (PCF) is an optional technique used to prevent collisions

in IEEE 802.11-based WLAN standard including Wi-Fi. It is a medium access control
(MAC) sublayer technique used in areas where carrier-sense multiple access with
collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) is used.
PCF is used additionally along with the mandatory distributed coordination function
(DCF). It is used in centralised control system, and is present in the access point (AP)
of the wireless network. An AP is generally a wireless router that coordinates network
communication.

How Does PCF Work?

The PCF is a polling-based access scheme, with no contention. In PCF, the

access point takes control of the medium, acting as a point coordinator. The
access point divides the channel access time into periodic beacon intervals. A
beacon interval is the period of time between the sending of beacon frames by
an access point, which communicate network management and identification
information to all user stations in a specific WLAN. Each beacon interval
comprises of a Contention Period (CP) and a Contention-Free Period (CFP).
During the former, DCF, as described above, is used. During the latter, the
stations wait to be polled, with the access point acting as the polling master.
The access point maintains a list of active stations, and polls them in a round-
robin fashion.
Since the PCF and DCF co-exist, the access point waits for a PCF Inter-Frame
Space (PIFS) before starting PCF. The PIFS interval is made shorter than DIFS to
give the PCF higher access priority than DCF. The complete 802.11 media
access event sequence is illustrated in Figure.
Procedure:

Step 1 − PC sends a beacon frame after waiting for PIFS. The beacon frame
reaches every station in the wireless network.

Step 2 − If AP has data for a particular station, say station X, it sends the data
and a grant to station X.

Step 3 − When station X gets the grant from the AP, if it has a data frame for
AP, it transmits data and acknowledgement (ACK) to the AP.

Step 4 − On receiving data from station X, the AP sends an ACK to it.

Step 5 − The AP then sends goes to the next station, say station Y. If AP has
data for Y, it sends data and grant to Y, otherwise it sends only grant to Y.

Step 6 − On receiving grant from AP, station Y transmits its data (if any) to AP.

Step 7 − This process continues for all the stations in the poll.

Step 8 − At the end of granting access to all the stations, the AP sends an ACK
to the last station. It then notifies all stations that this is the end of polling.
PCF implementation in java
In the implementation I used 3 class:

1-ACCESS POINT CLASS:

This class represent the access point and contain 3 function:

 Run() it is for creating a thread and run the access point on it and I used
the function synchronized(AP) for synchronous between the access
point and stations.

 send(String msg) this function send the received frame to the target if
the is no other communications is happening .
  receive() for receiving frames from the stations

2-STATION CLASS:
It is similar to the access point with the same methods except that station can’t
send frame directly to another station , the frame must send first to the access
point and the access point resend it to the target station.

 run() function is for running all the station on different threads.

 the two other methods (send frame receive frame) are the same as the
AP send and receive methods
3-PCF CLASS:
The main class contain the main function for creating the stations and the
access point and calling the send/receive function.
 Main()