Wireless ATM LAN with and without infrastructure

We consider wireless ATM concepts for small LANs, especially for SOHO and future consumer applications. We describe a wireless ATM LAN framework architecture that supports wireless ATM communications in environments with and without fixed ATM infrastructure. For the configuration with an ATM infrastructure, a distributed ATM switched backbone is proposed, which enables a smart ATM switching element to be embedded in every wireless and fixed access point. For bandwidth efficiency and ease of operation (place-and-play), we also propose an ad hoc wireless ATM LAN concept based on the same 5 GHz wireless ATM air interface as is currently under standardization in the ETSI/BRAN and ATM Forum. Unlike CSMA-based ad hoc systems such as HIPERLAN and IEEE802.11, our ad hoc wireless ATM system makes QoS management feasible in an infrastructureless environment by using resource reservation and scheduled medium access protocol. Since cost scalability is essential throughout our system design, we consider forwarding between ad hoc subnets and interworking with the fixed network as important but optional features     

QoS Routing for Mesh-Based Wireless LANs

Wireless LANs with their increased data rate become an attractive technology for connecting mobile users to the Internet. Efficient deployment of wireless LANs will require the ability to extend the wireless LANs coverage without the need to deploy a very large number of access points. Mesh-based wireless LANs are an attractive solution to this problem. These networks extend wireless LAN coverage by using each node in the network as a router, resulting in a multihop topology. In this paper we introduce a novel routing algorithm, wireless mesh routing (WMR), that provides quality-of-service (QoS) support and accounts for the characteristics of both infrastructure-based wireless LANs and ad hoc networks. The algorithm is validated using the OPNET modeler. The simulation results show that the mesh network using WMR protocol can provide QoS support and react dynamically to the network status changes with low control overheads. Using the proposed software architecture the proposed routing protocol can be implemented with any MAC protocol, resulting in easy implementation in existing wireless nodes.     

An OFDM-TDMA/SA MAC Protocol with QoS Constraints for Broadband Wireless LANs

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is an important technique to support high speed transmission of broadband traffic in wireless networks, especially broadband wireless local area networks (LANs). Based on OFDM, a new multiple access scheme, called OFDM-TDMA with subcarrier allocation (OFDM-TDMA/SA), is proposed in this paper. It provides more flexibility in resource allocation than other multiple access schemes such as OFDM-TDMA, OFDM-frequency division multiple access (OFDM-FDMA), and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). With OFDM-TDMA/SA, a medium access control (MAC) is designed for broadband wireless LANs. It optimizes bit allocation in subcarriers so that maximum bits are transmitted in each OFDM symbol under a frequency selective fading environment. The OFDM-TDMA/SA MAC protocol also supports three classes of traffic such as guaranteed, controlled-load, and best effort services. Based on the optimum subcarrier bit-allocation algorithm and considering heterogeneous QoS constraints of multimedia traffic, a hierarchical scheduling scheme is proposed to determine the subcarriers and time slots in which a mobile terminal can transmit packets. In such a way, the OFDM-TDMA/SA MAC protocol significantly increases system throughput in a frequency selective fading environment and guarantees QoS of multimedia traffic. Computer simulation is carried out to evaluate the performance of the OFDM-TDMA/SA MAC protocol. Results show that the new MAC protocol outperforms other MAC protocols for OFDM-based wireless LANs. This work was supported by the State of Georgia Yamacraw Project (E21-105).     

Hardware-software architecture of the SWAN Wireless ATM network

The SWAN (Seamless Wireless ATM Network) system provides end-to-end ATM connectivity to mobile end-points equipped with RF transceivers for wireless access. Users carrying laptops and multimedia terminals can seamlessly access multimedia data over a backbone wired network while roaming among room-sized cells that are equipped with basestations. The research focus on how to make ATM mobile and wireless distinguishes SWAN from present day mobile-IP based wireless LANs. This paper describes the design and implementation of the ATM-based wireless last-hop, the primary components of which are the air-interface control, the medium access control, and the low-level ATM transport and signalling.The design is made interesting by its interplay with ATM; in particular, by the need to meaningfully extend over the wireless last-hop the service quality guarantees made by the higher level ATM layers. The implementation, on the other hand, is an example of hardware-software co-design and partitioning. A key component of the wireless hop implementation is a custom designed reconfigurable wireless adapter card called FAWN (Flexible Adapter for Wireless Networking) which is used at the mobiles as well as at the basestations. The functionality is partitioned three-way amongst dedicated reconfigurable hardware on FAWN, embedded firmware on FAWN, and device driver software on a host processor. Using an off-the-shelf 625 Kbps per channel radio, several of which can be supported by a single FAWN adapter to provide multiple channels, per-channel unidirectional TCP data throughput of 227 Kbps (or, 454 Kbps bidirectional) and per-channel unidirectional native ATM data throughput of 210 Kbps (or, 420 Kbps bidirectional) have been obtained.     

Wideband local access: wireless LAN and wireless ATM

An overview of the status of wideband wireless local access technologies is provided. Service scenarios and availability of the market and products for wireless LAN and wireless ATM technologies are discussed. Similarities among IEEE 802.11 and HIPERLAN standards for wireless LANs and the developing prototypes for wireless ATM are evaluated. An update on the status of the available unlicensed bands in the United States as well as the status of the wideband wireless projects in the European Community and Japan are presented     

Mobility management in wireless ATM networks

Mobile ATM offers a common wired network infrastructure to support mobility of wireless terminals, independent of the wireless access protocol. In addition, it allows seamless migration to future wireless broadband services, such as wireless ATM, by enabling mobility of end-to-end ATM connections. In spite of the diversity in mobile networking technologies (e.g., cellular telephony, mobile-IP, packet data services, PCS), all of them require two fundamental mechanisms: location management and handoff. This article describes different schemes for augmenting a wired ATM network to support location management of mobile terminals and handoff protocols for rerouting a connection data path when the endpoint moves. A prototype implementation of mobile ATM integrating mobility support with ATM signaling and connection setup, is presented. It shows how mobile ATM may be used to provide mobility support to an IP terminal using non-ATM wireless access     

A nonpreemptive priority-based access control scheme for broadbandad hoc wireless ATM local area networks

The DQRUMA (distributed-queueing request update multiple access) protocol has been considered as an access protocol for the BAHAMA (broadband ad hoc wireless ATM local area network). However, it cannot support the service discipline of integrated multimedia traffic since it does not include any priority and access control policy. In this paper, we propose a nonpreemptive priority-based access control scheme for the DQRUMA protocol. Under such a scheme, modifying the CSMA/CA protocol in the contention period supports many levels of priorities such that user mobility (handoff) can be supported in BAHAMA. Besides, the proposed transmit-permission policy and adaptive bandwidth allocation scheme provide various QoS (quality-of-service) guarantees while maintaining high bandwidth utilization. Simulations show that it provides a good performance in ad hoc wireless ATM LAN environments     

TCP performance issues over wireless links

This article discusses the problems arising when the TCP/IP protocol suite is used to provide Internet connectivity over existing and emerging wireless links. Due to the strong drive toward wireless Internet access through mobile terminals, these problems must be carefully studied in order to build improved systems. We review wireless link characteristics using wireless LANs and cellular communications systems as examples. We then outline the performance problems of the TCP/IP protocol suite when employed over those links, such as degraded TCP performance due to mistaking wireless errors for congestion. We present various proposals for solving these problems and examine their benefits and limitations. Finally, we consider the future evolution of wireless systems and the challenges that emerging systems will impose on the Internet protocol suite     

Adaptive coding scheme for wireless LANs with CSMA/CA MAC protocol

The generalised type II hybrid automatic repeat-request scheme based on rate-compatible convolutional codes is used to achieve adaptive error protection in wireless local access networks (LANs) with the CSMA/CA protocol. Simulation results show that this coding scheme is a suitable error control method for wireless LANs where the channel state is unpredictable     

Low-latency handover in a wireless ATM LAN

The micro- and picocellular architectures proposed for wireless ATM LANs lead to wireless terminals frequently changing their point of attachment to the network. Because ATM connections have quality of service (QoS) guarantees which must be maintained, handover must be as seamless as possible. We present a novel architecture and protocol which primarily aims to keep the interruption period due to handover low, rather than seeking to keep the process entirely lossless. We compare the tradeoffs made, with those in other schemes from the literature, and give quantitative results from an implementation of our scheme on a 10 Mbits/s^-1 prototype wireless ATM LAN     

Efficient use of protocol stacks for LAN/MAN-ATM interworking

Connectionless (CL) services as already developed in LANs, have to interwork with emerging asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) connection-oriented (CO) networks. MANs are a significant evolutionary step and CO MANs, in particular, constitute a technically appealing method to integrate both environments and provide shared medium access for all services. The functions required for enhancing distributed-queue dual-bus (DQDB) MANs with CO services in a way compatible with ATM are described. Within the integrating framework of B-ISDN, the practically useful scenarios for interworking LANs, CO and CL MANs, and ATM are investigated and classified in order to exploit the advantages of an efficient protocol relay utilizing the resources of the lowest possible layer. This is aimed at assisting interworking unit (IWU) designers and implementors to decide on key options in this versatile and evolving environment. The CO DQDB case emerges as the most advantageous development in terms of interworking simplicity and robustness     

Quality-of-service oriented medium access control for wireless ATMnetworks

The medium access control (MAC) protocol and the underlying traffic scheduling algorithm developed within project Magic WAND (Wireless ATM Network Demonstrator) are presented. Magic WAND is investigating wireless ATM technology for customer premises networks in the framework of the Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS) program funded by the European Union. The MAC protocol, known as MASCARA, is a hub-based, adaptive TDMA scheme which combines reservation- and contention-based access methods to provide multiple access efficiency and quality-of-service guarantees to wireless ATM terminal connections sharing a common radio channel. The traffic scheduling algorithm is delay-oriented to meet the requirements of the various traffic classes defined by the ATM architecture. The results of the simulation of a number of scenarios are presented to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm     

移动多媒体通信中无线AIM接入和结构

本文讨论移动多媒体通信中无线ＡＴＭ的基本概念和结构，包括无线ＡＴＭ概念，ＡＴＭ无线接入，无线ＡＴＭ网络，协议，信元和传输结构。研究无线信道给移动多媒体通信带来的影响和解决方法。     

Enhancing the performance of medium access control for WLANs with multi-beam access point

Wireless LANs with multi-beam directional antennas have received intensive attention lately due to the potential gain in throughput performance. However, when the multi-beam directional antennas are introduced in this system, the ever popular contention-based medium access control protocol such as IEEE 802.11 MAC is no longer effective, and many challenging problems, such as beam-synchronization problem, beam-overlapping problem, mobility and receiver blocking problem (deafness problem), need to be resolved. In this paper, we propose a novel MAC protocol to carefully address these problems. In addition to improving communication efficiency, we also consider the backward compatibility in our design, whereby an IEEE 802.11 terminal can transparently access a multi-beam access point. Furthermore, we present an analytical model to evaluate the performance of multi-beam wireless LANs. Extensive simulation studies are used to validate the analytical model and show that our scheme can significantly improve the throughput performance     

一种无线ATM网络的MAC协议

主要研究了无线ATM网络对MAC的需求，并介绍了适用于无线ATM的一种新的MAC方案。该协议支持不同类型信息传输，比如恒定比特率（CBR），可变比特率（VBR），可用比特率（ABR），未指定比特率（UBR）。另外此协议还提供了对宽带ATM主干网的无缝连接。同时也支持与ATM相关的QoS级别。对于该协议关注的各种情况的主要原理进行了讨论。     

Multiple access control protocols for wireless ATM: problemsdefinition and design objectives

The concept of wireless ATM is now being actively considered as a potential framework for next-generation wireless communication networks capable of supporting integrated multimedia services with different QoS requirements. Several key subsystem design issues for wired ATM and wireless networks need to be readdressed in the scope of the wireless ATM. One of the main key subsystem issues is the development of the appropriate medium access control (MAC) protocol, which has the capability to extend the statistical multiplexing of the wired ATM network into the wireless medium. In this article the authors address the problem of a suitable MAC protocol for the specification of a wireless ATM network and outline the design objectives. In addition, the authors address some other challenging key issues that the wireless medium and wireless network architecture impose on the ATM stack protocol     

A signaling architecture for wireless ATM access networks

A multiservice wireless Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) access system is considered from a signaling protocol viewpoint. In an attempt to generalize and extend results and experiences obtained from the specification, design, and implementation of fixed ATM‐based access networks, we extend the concept of the broadband V interface (referred to as VB) for application to wireless ATM access networks. The proposed architecture follows the signaling structure of Broadband ISDN (B‐ISDN) User–Network Interface (UNI), thus offering the possibility for integration of the wireless ATM access system into fixed B‐ISDN. It is shown that the use of the proposed access signaling architecture provides cost effective implementations without degrading the agreed Quality of Service (QoS), and simplifies call/connection and handover control. The evaluation of the proposed access signaling protocol structure yields results that fall within acceptable ATM signaling performance measures. A performance comparison of our approach with an alternative access signaling configuration is also carried out to quantify the relative gains. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Wireless ATM networks: technology status and future directions

The concept of “wireless ATM” (WATM), first proposed in 1992, is now being actively considered as a potential framework for new-generation wireless communication networks capable of supporting integrated, quality-of service (QoS) based multimedia services. In this review paper, we outline the technological rationale for wireless ATM, present a system-level architecture, and discuss key design issues for both mobile ATM switching infrastructure and radio access subsystems. The WATM radio access layer issues covered in this paper include: spectrum allocation; spectrum etiquette; modem technology; and medium access/data link control (MAC/DLC) protocols. Mobile ATM aspects such as ATM signaling extensions for handoff control, location management, and mobile QoS control are discussed. A summary of current wireless/mobile ATM technology development and standardization status is given, including an outline of our WATMnet prototype. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions for wireless ATM technology such as Internet protocol (IP) integration and mobile multimedia terminals/applications     

Emerging wireless broadband networks

The rapid evolution of mobile wireless access networks toward multimedia support with QoS provision forces the development of advanced wireless broadband systems with high reliability and high data rate. To achieve this goal, new system design concepts with increased system capacity will be required. In that context, ATM is becoming a major infrastructure, receiving a lot of attention for telecommunication systems since ATM networks can most effectively support wireless access systems. Wireless ATM systems have low transmission cost, flexible functionality, mobile ATM protocol, and radio access layer protocols. This article overviews the various wireless broadband systems studied at 5, 19.37, 40, and 60 GHz by European Union funded projects within the ACTS program. Moreover, related standardization activities and network evolution are also addressed     

A proposal of an ATM wireless access system for tetherless multimedia services

This paper proposes an ATM wireless access system for tetherless multimedia services. The proposed system is intended to provide ATM-based high-speed transmission capability for tetherless multimedia services by wireless media in private LAN/WAN environments as well as public environments. To enable high-speed transmission, this paper proposes the utilization of the SHF band taking advantage of its wide frequency spectrum availability. However, the propagation feature of the SHF band limits the wireless terminal mobility in the proposed system compared with current cellular phone systems. This paper discusses the concept and system architecture of the proposed ATM wireless access system, including its ATM transport based on ATM/TDMA conversion using a time stamp scheme.