一种提高IEEE 802.11吞吐量和公平性的自适应优化算法

该文提出了一种针对IEEE 802.11 DCF网络增强其吞吐量和公平性性能的自适应优化算法,算法基于网络节点侦听信道得到的网络状态信息进行竞争发送的自适应调整以获得最优的网络性能,称之为CSCC(Channel Sensing Contention Control)算法。算法采用了对节点的信道接入请求以概率参数P_T进行过滤的方法控制节点竞争接入信道的激烈程度,其主要特点在于在优化调整过程中不需要进行计算复杂的网络节点数量估计,并且可以在不同网络状态下围绕始终确定的优化目标进行参数优化调整。仿真实验结果表明,算法能够适应不同节点数量和不同数据大小的网络进行自适应的网络优化调整,并获得了系统吞吐量、碰撞概率、延迟、延迟抖动、公平性等多方面的性能改善。     

Optimal Constant-Window Backoff Scheme for IEEE 802.11 DCF in Single-Hop Wireless Networks Under Finite Load Conditions

Existing backoff scheme’s optimization of IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC protocol consider only saturated networks or asymptotic conditions. In real situations, traffic is bursty or streamed at low rates so that stations do not operate usually in saturated regime. In this work, we propose and analyze a backoff enhancement for IEEE 802.11 DCF that requires information only about the network size and that is quasi-optimal under all traffic loads. We first analyze the performance of DCF multiple access scheme under general load conditions in single-hop configuration and we provide an accurate delay statistics model that consider the self-loop probability in every backoff state. We prove then the short-term unfairness of the binary exponential backoff used in IEEE 802.11 by defining channel capture probability as fairness metric. Motivated by the results on fairness, we introduce the constant-window backoff scheme and we compare its performance to IEEE 802.11 DCF with Binary exponential backoff. The quasi-optimality of the proposed scheme is proved analytically and numerical results show that it increases, both the throughput and fairness, of IEEE 802.11 DCF while remaining insensitive to traffic intensity. The analysis is then extended to consider the finite queuing capacity at nodes buffers using results from the delay analysis. NS2 simulations validate the obtained results. Institut Eurecom’s research is partially supported by its industrial members: BMW Group Research & Technology—BMW Group Company, Bouygues Telecom, Cisco Systems, France Telecom , Hitachi Europe, SFR, Sharp, STMicroelectronics, Swisscom, Thales.     

新的改进IEEE 802.11 DCF性能的退避机制

分布式协调功能DCF是IEEE802.11标准最基本的媒体接入方法,它的核心是载波检测多址接入/冲突避免（CSMA/CA）机制,通过退避算法,减少碰撞的概率。提出了一种新的退避机制改进IEEE802.11DCF饱和吞吐量性能,建立了三维马尔可夫链网络模型详细研究分析,同时利用NS2对所提出的机制进行仿真,比较了改进后的802.11DCF饱和吞吐量与原802.11DCF的饱和吞吐量的大小,仿真结果证明了算法的准确有效。     

通过自适应调整最小竞争窗口最大化IEEE 802.11 DCF的饱和吞吐量

最大化802.11 DCF的饱和吞吐量对充分利用无线局域网宝贵的带宽资源具有重要意义。该文在分析802.11 DCF的饱和吞吐量与最小竞争窗口、最大回退等级、网络中竞争信道的节点数的关系的基础上,推导了根据网络中竞争信道的节点数,计算最小竞争窗口的最佳值的简单公式。给出了估计竞争信道的节点数并据此动态调整最小竞争窗口的最佳值的自适应算法。同时,该文对估计竞争节点数的算法的准确性和计算最小竞争窗口最佳值的公式的准确性进行了仿真分析,并比较了改进后的802.11 DCF的饱和吞吐量与原802.11 DCF的饱和吞吐量的大小。仿真结果证明了上述公式、算法是准确和有效的。     

Airtime Fairness for IEEE 802.11 Multirate Networks

Under a multirate network scenario, the IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC fails to provide airtime fairness for all competing stations since the protocol is designed for ensuring max-min throughput fairness. As such, the maximum achievable throughput by any station gets bounded by the slowest transmitting peer. In this paper, we present an analytical model to study the delay and throughput characteristics of such networks so that the rate anomaly problem of IEEE DCF multirate networks could be mitigated. We call our proposal time fair CSMA (TFCSMA) which utilizes an interesting baseline property for estimating a target throughput for each competing station so that its minimum contention window could be adjusted in a distributed manner. As opposed to the previous work in this area, TFCSMA is ideally suited for practical scenarios where stations frequently adapt their data rates to changing channel conditions. In addition, TFCSMA also accounts for packet errors due to the time varying properties of the wireless channel. We thoroughly compare the performance of our proposed protocol with IEEE 802.11 and other existing protocols under different network scenarios and traffic conditions. Our comprehensive simulations validate the efficacy of our method toward providing high throughput and time fair channel allocation.     

A novel performance analysis model for an IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN

This letter presents a novel analytic model that accurately evaluates the performance of a single-hop IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN). By using a closed queuing network, we model an IEEE 802.11 WLAN system that consists of a fixed number of stations and derive the saturated throughput of the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF). The ns-2 simulation results show that our new analysis model is very accurate in evaluating the performance of the IEEE 802.11 DCF.     

IEEE 802.11 DCF性能分析及改进

本文通过对IEEE 802.11 DCF的性能分析,发现其在时隙选择概率分布上具有明显的不均匀性,这导致了很高的包碰撞概率.本文给出了一种简单的改进方案——A-DCF.通过理论与仿真比较,证明了A-DCF能有效改进DCF时隙选择概率分布的不均匀性,同时,在不降低系统饱和吞吐量的情况下,A-DCF能明显降低包的碰撞概率,且对网络负荷具有自适应能力.     

Improving protocol capacity by scheduling random access on WLANs

The MAC protocol is important, especially for wireless LAN because of limited bandwidth. A great deal of research has been carried out and some of proposed schemes are effective. Specifically, considerable effort has been devoted to improving the IEEE 802.11 standard which is utilized widely. Previous theoretical analysis gave the upper bound of IEEE 802.11 DCF throughput which is far below the channel capacity and corresponding algorithm was proposed, which can achieve the throughput close to the upper bound. It seems that we cannot expect to enhance the throughput much more in a usual way. In the meantime, besides throughput, there are some other issues for DCF such as fairness and QoS support. However, except for several hybrid protocols, most proposals were either based on contention mode or schedule mode and neither of the two modes has possessed the good characters of the other. In this paper, we propose a new MAC scheme used for DCF (with no control node) that dynamically adapts to traffic changes without degradation of delay in the case of low traffic load and achieves high throughput which is close to transmission capacity in saturated case. The key idea is to divide the virtual frame into two parts, i.e., schedule part and contention part, and to enable each node to reserve a slot in schedule part. Unlike conventional hybrid protocols, every node does not have to intentionally reset any parameter according to the changing traffic load except its queue length. A distinguishing feature of this scheme is the novel way of allowing WLANs to work with low delay as in the contention-based mode and achieve high throughput as in the schedule-based mode without complicated on-line estimation required in previous schemes. This makes our scheme simpler and more reliable. Through an analysis of simulation results, we show that our scheme can greatly improve the throughput with low delay.     

A backoff algorithm based on self-adaptive contention window update factor for IEEE 802.11 DCF

The binary exponential backoff (BEB) mechanism is applied to the packet retransmission in lots of wireless network protocols including IEEE 802.11 and 802.15.4. In distributed dynamic network environments, the fixed contention window (CW) updating factor of BEB mechanism can’t adapt to the variety of network size properly, resulting in serious collisions. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a backoff algorithm based on self-adaptive contention window update factor for IEEE 802.11 DCF. In WLANs, this proposed backoff algorithm can greatly enhance the throughput by setting the optimal CW updating factor according to the theoretical analysis. When the number of active nodes varies, an intelligent scheme can adaptively adjust the CW updating factor to achieve the maximal throughput during run time. As a result, it effectively reduces the number of collisions, improves the channel utilization and retains the advantages of the binary exponential back-off algorithm, such as simplicity and zero cost. In IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) protocol, the numerical analysis of physical layer parameters show that the new backoff algorithm performance is much better than BEB, MIMD and MMS algorithm.     

A traffic control system for IEEE 802.11 networks based on available bandwidth estimation

To support Quality of service (QoS)‐sensitive applications like real‐time video streaming in IEEE 802.11 networks, a MAC layer extension for QoS, IEEE 802.11e, has been recently ratified as a standard. This MAC layer solution, however, addresses only the issue of prioritized access to the wireless medium and leaves such issues as QoS guarantee and admission control to the traffic control systems at the higher layers. This paper presents an IP‐layer traffic control system for IEEE 802.11 networks based on available bandwidth estimation. We build an analytical model for estimating the available bandwidth by extending an existing throughput computation model, and implement a traffic control system that provides QoS guarantees and admission control by utilizing the estimated available bandwidth information. We have conducted extensive performance evaluation of the proposed scheme via both simulations and measurements in the real test‐bed. The experiment results show that our estimation model and traffic control system work accurately and effectively in various network load conditions without IEEE 802.11e. The presence of IEEE 802.11e will allow even more efficient QoS provision, as the proposed scheme and the MAC layer QoS support will complement each other. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Throughput Differentiation and Optimization Via TXOP in IEEE 802.11e EDCA Networks

The Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) has been proposed as the mandatory channel access method in IEEE 802.11e to provide Quality-of-Service enhancement. Transmission Opportunity (TXOP) is adopted in the EDCA as one of the service differentiation mechanisms. With the TXOP mechanism, nodes in each Access Category (AC) are allowed to transmit multiple packets for different time intervals after gaining the channel access. Throughput differentiation can then be realized among ACs. The effect of the TXOP mechanism on the performance differentiation was widely studied in previous work. Despite these efforts, it remains largely unknown how the TXOP mechanism affects the optimal network performance. This paper is devoted to study how to achieve the maximum network throughput with the service differentiation requirement via the TXOP mechanism in a saturated IEEE 802.11e EDCA network. In particular, the expressions of both the node throughput and the network throughput are derived as functions of system parameters including the TXOP value in each AC. The node-throughput ratio is determined by TXOP values, which validates that the TXOP mechanism is effective in providing throughput differentiation. The explicit expression of the maximum throughput is further derived, and is found to be determined by the TXOP mechanism and the service differentiation requirement of each AC. To achieve the maximum throughput, the initial backoff window size of each AC should be adaptively chosen according to the TXOP values, the targeted node-throughput ratios as well as the number of nodes in each AC.     

Queuing Scheme for Improved Downlink Throughput on WLANs

A transmission queuing scheme is described that increases downlink throughput on wireless local area networks (WLANs) while also increasing the total throughput. When the amount of uplink traffic increases on a WLAN, the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol, which is the prescribed scheme for IEEE 802.11 WLAN channel access, may substantially reduce the rate of downlink data frame transmission. This results in severe throughput degradation for mobile stations with downlink traffic. The proposed scheme comprises a transmission control function based on consecutive transmission, as described in the IEEE 802.11e standard, and a dynamic queue prioritization algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme increases the maximum total throughput for uplink and downlink traffic by 17% compared with the conventional distributed coordination function (DCF) scheme and that it reduces the difference between uplink and downlink throughput. In an environment where transmission errors occur, the difference in throughput is reduced by about 50% compared with the conventional schemes.     

A k-Round Elimination Contention Scheme for WLANs

The contention resolution scheme is a key component in carrier-sense-based wireless MAC protocols. It has a major impact on MAC'S performance metrics such as throughput, delay, and jitter. The IEEE 802.11 DCF adopts a simple contention resolution scheme, namely, the binary exponential backoff (BEB) scheme. The BEB scheme achieves a reasonable performance for transmitting best-effort packets in small-sized wireless networks. However, as the network size increases, it suffers from inefficiency because of the medium contention, which leads to reduced performance. The main reason is that the BEB mechanism incurs an ever- increasing collision rate as the number of contending nodes increases. We devise a novel contention resolution scheme, a k-round elimination contention (k-EC) scheme. The k-EC scheme exhibits high efficiency and robustness during the collision resolution. More importantly, it is insensitive to the number of contending nodes. This feature makes it feasible for use in networks of different sizes. Simulation results show that the k-EC scheme offers a powerful remedy to medium contention resolution. It significantly outperforms the IEEE 802.11 DCF scheme in all the MAC'S performance metrics and also exhibits better fairness.     

Analytical Analysis of Applying Packet Fragmentation Mechanism on Both Basic and RTS/CTS Access Methods of the IEEE 802.11b DCF Network Under Imperfect Channel and Finite Load Conditions

The mathematical modeling and performance evaluation of the IEEE 802.11 network in all its various extensions (802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11e, 802.11n, etc.) have already been widely explored over the past years. However, the Packet Fragmentation Mechanism (PFM), which is proposed by the IEEE work group to enhance the MAC sub-layer of the IEEE 802.11 standard in an error-prone channel, has been missed in the available literature. Yet, the PFM is the only existing solution to reduce the influence of bit error rate and the length of data packets on the packet error rate, and consequently on the performances of IEEE 802.11 networks. In this paper, we propose a new three-dimensional Markov chain in order to model, for the first time in the literature, the PFM in both Basic and RTS/CTS access methods of the IEEE 802.11b DCF network under imperfect channel and finite load conditions. Then, we develop mathematical models to derive a variety of performance metrics, such as: the overall throughput, the average packet delay successfully transmitted, the average packet drop time, the delay jitter and the packet delay distribution. Performance analysis of applying PFM on both Basic and RTS/CTS access methods of the IEEE 802.11b DCF network under imperfect channel and finite load conditions shows original results and leads to new conclusions that could not be intuitively expected.     

Ad hoc网络中DCF公平性分析与改进

在考虑节点的物理载波检测范围大于通信范围的情况下,该文分析了多跳Adhoc网络中物理载波检测机制对IEEE 802.11DCF协议公平性的影响。针对载波干扰给IEEE802.11DCF协议带来的严重不公平问题,提出了一种基于冲突和干扰感知的退避(CIAB)算法。仿真证明,该算法能有效地改善IEEE802.11DCF协议的公平性,并且没有引起网络吞吐量的严重下降。     

A smart exponential‐threshold‐linear backoff mechanism for IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Based on the standardized IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) protocol, this paper proposes a new backoff mechanism, called Smart Exponential‐Threshold‐Linear (SETL) Backoff Mechanism, to enhance the system performance of contention‐based wireless networks. In the IEEE 802.11 DCF scheme, the smaller contention window (CW) will increase the collision probability, but the larger CW will delay the transmission. Hence, in the proposed SETL scheme, a threshold is set to determine the behavior of CW after each transmission. When the CW is smaller than the threshold, the CW of a competing station is exponentially adjusted to lower collision probability. Conversely, if the CW is larger than the threshold, the CW size is tuned linearly to prevent large transmission delay. Through extensive simulations, the results show that the proposed SETL scheme provides a better system throughput and lower collision rate in both light and heavy network loads than the related backoff algorithm schemes, including Binary Exponential Backoff (BEB), Exponential Increase Exponential Decrease (EIED) and Linear Increase Linear Decrease (LILD). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

IEEE 802_11e EDCF饱和状态下性能分析

IEEE 802．11e协议草案以增强型分布式协调功能（EDCF）为基础。用于加强对无线局域网标准IEEE 802.11的QoS支持力度。文章简要介绍了802．11中的分布式协调功能（DCF）和点怫调功能（PCF）。重点阐述了802.11e EDCF的基本原理和组成结构。使用网络模拟工具NS-2对比了DCF和EDCF的吞吐量，并对EDCF在饱和状态下以及站点慢速移动情况下的性能进行了详细的分析和比较。     

Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.11 DCF in Imperfect Channels

IEEE 802.11 is the most important standard for wireless local area networks (WLANs). In IEEE 802.11, the fundamental medium access control (MAC) scheme is the distributed coordination function (DCF). To understand the performance of WLANs, it is important to analyze IEEE 802.11 DCF. Recently, several analytical models have been proposed to evaluate the performance of DCF under different incoming traffic conditions. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no accurate model that takes into account both the incoming traffic loads and the effect of imperfect wireless channels, in which unsuccessful packet delivery may occur due to bit transmission errors. In this paper, the authors address this issue and provide an analytical model to evaluate the performance of DCF in imperfect wireless channels. The authors consider the impact of different factors together, including the binary exponential backoff mechanism in DCF, various incoming traffic loads, distribution of incoming packet size, queueing system at the MAC layer, and the imperfect wireless channels, which has never been done before. Extensive simulation and analysis results show that the proposed analytical model can accurately predict the delay and throughput performance of IEEE 802.11 DCF under different channel and traffic conditions.     

Performance analysis of the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordinationfunction

The IEEE has standardized the 802.11 protocol for wireless local area networks. The primary medium access control (MAC) technique of 802.11 is called the distributed coordination function (DCF). The DCF is a carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme with binary slotted exponential backoff. This paper provides a simple, but nevertheless extremely accurate, analytical model to compute the 802.11 DCF throughput, in the assumption of finite number of terminals and ideal channel conditions. The proposed analysis applies to both the packet transmission schemes employed by DCF, namely, the basic access and the RTS/CTS access mechanisms. In addition, it also applies to a combination of the two schemes, in which packets longer than a given threshold are transmitted according to the RTS/CTS mechanism. By means of the proposed model, we provide an extensive throughput performance evaluation of both access mechanisms of the 802.11 protocol     

An accurate two dimensional Markov chain model for IEEE 802.11n DCF

According to the amendment 5 of the IEEE 802.11 standard, 802.11n still uses the distributed coordination function (DCF) access method as mandatory function in access points and wireless stations (essentially to assure compatibility with previous 802.11 versions). This article provides an accurate two dimensional Markov chain model to investigate the throughput performance of IEEE 802.11n networks when frame aggregation and block acknowledgements (Block-ACK) schemes are adopted. Our proposed model considered packet loss either from collisions or channel errors. Further, it took anomalous slots and the freezing of backoff counter into account. The contribution of this work was the analysis of the DCF performance under error-prone channels considering both 802.11n MAC schemes and the anomalous slot in the backoff process. To validate the accuracy of our proposed model, we compared its mathematical simulation results with those obtained using the 802.11n DCF in the network simulator (NS-2) and with other analytical models investigating the performance of 802.11n DCF. Simulation results proved the accuracy of our model.