As one of the transmission media for short range indoor wireless data communications, Infrared (IR) medium has the features of low cost and low power consumption. IEEE 802.11 Infrared W-LAN and Infrared Data Association (IrDA) Advanced Infrared Medium Access Control (AIr MAC) layer protocols are presented; Two performance evaluation models are studied and simulation verification of the results is provided by using the OPNET Modeler package; A performance comparison is made between the IEEE 802.11 Infrared WLAN and the IrDA Advanced Infrared MAC protocols by analyzing the MAC protocols, the throughput performance evaluation model and the simulation results.