The saturation throughput of IEEE 802.11 DCF under the Rayleigh fading channel is analyzed. First we construct the Markov chain of the backoff counter and backoff stage of a tagged node in an IEEE 802.11 LAN with the Rayleigh fading channel. Using parameters obtained from the Markov chain, the transmission probability of a tagged node is obtained. Then, we calculate the throughput of IEEE 802.11 DCF under the Rayleigh fading channel.
It is shown that results from our analysis fit well to the results from the simulation with the network simulator ns2. A significant decrease in channel throughput under the Rayleigh fading channel compared to that under the ideal channel is also shown.