This paper presents a PHYsical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layer design that enables Multi-Packet Reception (MPR) in an 802.11 network. The 802.11 stations are equipped with smart antenna systems and adopt efficient coding techniques to support multi-hop communications in a multipath-fading affected channel. The introduced MAC layer modifications are minimal and provide asynchronous access to the medium as long as the number of ongoing communications lies within a given threshold. The numerical investigations are performed by using an ad-hoc developed hybrid discrete-time discrete-event simulation platform, which is based on the integration between network simulator-2 (ns-2) and MATLAB.
