Adaptive backoff scheme for ad hoc networks based on IEEE 802.11

The performance of backoff scheme plays an important role in designing efficient Medium Access Protocols for ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose an adaptive backoff scheme and evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme for ad hoc networks. The backoff mechanism devised by us grants a node access to the channel based on its probability of collision for a transmitted frame in comparison to the nodes in the two‐hop contention area. We use both an analytical model and simulation experiments to evaluate the performance of our adaptive backoff mechanism in an ad hoc network. The results show that our protocol exhibits a significant improvement in power saving, end‐to‐end goodput, packet delivery ratio, and hop‐put, compared with the existing IEEE 802.11 DCF. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytical modeling of bidirectional multi‐channel IEEE 802.11 MAC protocols

This paper presents an analytical approach to model the bi‐directional multi‐channel IEEE 802.11 MAC protocols (Bi‐MCMAC) for ad hoc networks. Extensive simulation work has been done for the performance evaluation of IEEE 802.11 MAC protocols. Since simulation has several limitations, this work is primarily based on the analytical approach. The objective of this paper is to show analytically the performance advantages of Bi‐MCMAC protocol over the classical IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. The distributed coordination function (DCF) mode of medium access control (MAC) is considered in the modeling. Two different channel scheduling strategies, namely, random channel selection and fastest channel first selection strategy are also presented in the presence of multiple channels with different transmission rates. M/G/1 queue is used to model the protocols, and stochastic reward nets (SRNs) are employed as a modeling technique as it readily captures the synchronization between events in the DCF mode of access. The average system throughput, mean delay, and server utilization of each MAC protocol are evaluated using the SRN formalism. We also validate our analytical model by comparison with simulation results. The results obtained through the analytical modeling approach illustrate the performance advantages of Bi‐MCMAC protocols with the fastest channel first scheduling strategy over the classical IEEE 802.11 protocol for TCP traffic in wireless ad hoc networks. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

E‐MAC: an elastic MAC layer for IEEE 802.11 networks

We present a system for real‐time traffic support in infrastructure and ad hoc IEEE 802.11 networks. The proposed elastic MAC (E‐MAC) protocol provides a distributed transmission schedule for stations with real‐time traffic requirements, while allowing a seamless coexistence with standard IEEE 802.11 clients, protecting best‐effort 802.11 traffic from starvation by means of admission control policies. Our scheduling decisions are based on an ‘elastic’ transmission opportunity (TXOP) assignment which allows for efficient wireless resource usage: whenever a real‐time station does not use the assigned TXOP, the other real‐time stations can take over the unused access opportunity, thus preventing the well‐known inefficiencies of static time division multiple access (TDMA) schemes. Unlike other TDMA‐based solutions for 802.11, E‐MAC does not require a tight synchronization among the participating clients, thus allowing its implementation on commodity WLAN hardware via minor software changes at the client side, and no changes at the access points (APs). We studied the performance of our mechanism via ns‐2 simulations and a mathematical model, showing that it outperforms IEEE 802.11e in terms of throughput, delay, and jitter. We finally provide a proof of concept through the results obtained in a real testbed where we implemented the E‐MAC protocol. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An energy-efficient MAC protocol based on IEEE 802.11 in wireless ad hoc networks

Energy efficiency is a measure of the performance of IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop ad hoc networks. The IEEE 802.11 standard, currently used in wireless multihop ad hoc networks, wastes bandwidth capacity and energy resources because of many collisions. Therefore, controlling the contention window size at a given node will increase not only the operating life of the battery but also the overall system capacity. It is essential to develop effective backoff schemes for saving power in IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient backoff scheme and evaluate its performance in an ad hoc network. Our contention window mechanism devised by us grants a node access to a channel on the basis of the node’s percentage of residual energy. We use both an analytical model and simulation experiments to evaluate the effective performance of our scheme in an ad hoc network. Our extensive ns-2-based simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme provides excellent performance in terms of energy goodput, end-to-end goodput, and packet delivery ratio, as well as the end-to-end delay.     

Increasing fairness and efficiency using the MadMac protocol in ad hoc networks

The IEEE 802.11 MAC layer is known for its unfairness behavior in ad hoc networks. Introducing fairness in the 802.11 MAC protocol may lead to a global throughput decrease. It is still a real challenge to design a fair MAC protocol for ad hoc networks that is distributed, topology independent, that relies on no explicit information exchanges and that is efficient, i.e. that achieves a good aggregate throughput. The MadMac protocol deals with fairness and throughput by maximizing aggregate throughput when unfairness is solved. Fairness provided by MadMac is only based on information provided by the 802.11 MAC layer. MadMac has been tested in many configurations that are known to be unfair and compared with three protocols (IEEE 802.11 and two fair MAC protocols). In these configurations, MadMac provides a good aggregate throughput while solving the fairness issues.     

Performance of a MANET directional MAC protocol with angle‐of‐arrival estimation

The use of directional antennas in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) has shown to offer large throughput gains relative to omnidirectional antennas. When used in ad hoc networks, directional medium‐access‐control (DMAC) protocols usually require all nodes, or part of nodes, to be aware of their exact locations. This location information is typically provided using a global positioning system (GPS). Although GPS systems are designed to be as nearly accurate as possible, there are still estimation errors that can cause a relatively large deviation from the actual GPS receiver position. In this paper, we investigate the effect of inaccurate node position estimation on the throughput of these protocols. Our results clearly indicate that the advantages of DMAC protocols diminish if the available position information is not accurate enough. As an alternative, we propose an efficient DMAC protocol that utilizes signal parameter estimation via the rotational invariance technique (ESPRIT) for direction‐of‐arrival (DOA) estimation; alleviating the need for GPS and, hence, avoiding the degrading associated with typical GPS position estimation errors. Moreover, unlike GPS‐based protocols, our protocol is suitable for both outdoor and indoor applications. Under different operating conditions and channel models, our simulation results show the throughput improvement achieved using the proposed protocol relative to the IEEE 802.11. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel efficient power‐saving MAC protocol for multi‐hop MANETs

Following recent advances in the performance of ad hoc networks, the limited life of batteries in mobile devices poses a bottleneck in their development. Consequently, how to minimize power consumption in the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer of ad hoc networks is an essential issue. The power‐saving mode (PSM) of IEEE 802.11 involves the Timing Synchronization Function to reduce power consumption for single‐hop mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). However, the IEEE 802.11 PSM is known to result in unnecessary energy consumption as well as the problems of overheating and back‐off time delay. Hence, this study presents an efficient power‐saving MAC protocol, called p‐MANET, based on a Multi‐hop Time Synchronization Protocol, which involves a hibernation mechanism, a beacon inhibition mechanism, and a low‐latency next‐hop selection mechanism for general‐purpose multi‐hop MANETs. The main purposes of the p‐MANET protocol are to reduce significantly the power consumption and the transmission latency. In the hibernation mechanism, each p‐MANET node needs only to wake up during one out of every N beacon interval, where N is the number of beacon intervals in a cycle. Thus, efficient power consumption is achieved. Furthermore, a beacon inhibition mechanism is proposed to prevent the beacon storm problem that is caused by synchronization and neighbor discovery messages. Finally, the low‐latency next‐hop selection mechanism is designed to yield low transmission latency. Each p‐MANET node is aware of the active beacon intervals of its neighbors by using a hash function, such that it can easily forward packets to a neighbor in active mode or with the least remaining time to wake up. As a consequence, upper‐layer routing protocols can cooperate with p‐MANET to select the next‐hop neighbor with the best forwarding delay. To verify the proposed design and demonstrate the favorable performance of the proposed p‐MANET, we present the theoretical analysis related to p‐MANET and also perform experimental simulations. The numerical results show that p‐MANET reduces power consumption and routing latency and performs well in extending lifetime with a small neighbor discovery time. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy efficient broadcast routing in mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, we address the problem of broadcast routing in mobile ad hoc networks from the viewpoint of energy efficiency. In an ad hoc wireless network, each node runs on a local energy source which has a limited energy lifespan. Thus, energy conservation is a critical issue in ad hoc networks. One approach for energy conservation is to establish routes which require lowest total energy consumption. This optimization problem is referred as the minimum‐energy broadcast routing problem (MEBRP). In this paper, we propose new efficient algorithms for the construction of energy‐efficient trees for broadcast in mobile ad hoc networks. These algorithms exploit the broadcast nature of the wireless channel, and address the need for energy‐efficient operations. Empirical studies show that our algorithms are able to achieve better performance than algorithms that have been developed for MEBRP. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Jamming problem in IEEE 802.11‐based mobile ad hoc networks with hidden terminals: Performance analysis and enhancement

The hidden‐terminal problem significantly degrades the performance of IEEE 802.11 DCF. Many previous works have investigated its influence on the throughput of CSMA‐based medium access control (MAC) protocols, especially IEEE 802.11 DCF. In this paper, we introduce a new Jamming problem for IEEE 802.11‐based mobile ad hoc networks, which is caused by hidden terminals. An analytical model is established for this problem. Based on this model, an adaptive DCF (ADCF), is designed to solve the jamming problem through adaptively adjusting the minimum contention window of hidden terminals. Simulation results effectively demonstrate that the proposed A‐DCF can avoid the jamming and in turn greatly improve channel utilization and throughput. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

OMAR: Utilizing Multiuser Diversity in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

One of the most promising approaches to improving communication efficiency in wireless communication systems is the use of multiuser diversity. Although it has been widely investigated and shown feasible and efficient in cellular networks, there is little work for the ad hoc networks, especially in real protocol and algorithm design. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme, namely, the opportunistic medium access and auto rate (OMAR), to efficiently utilize the shared medium in IEEE 802.11-based ad hoc networks by taking advantage of diversity, distributed scheduling, and adaptivity. In an ad hoc network, especially in a heterogeneous ad hoc network or a mesh network, some nodes may need to communicate with multiple one-hop nodes. We allow such a node with a certain number of links to function as a clusterhead to locally coordinate multiuser communications. We introduce a CDF-based (cumulative distribution function) K-ary opportunistic splitting algorithm and a distributed stochastic scheduling algorithm to resolve intra and intercluster collisions, respectively. Fairness is formulated and solved in terms of social optimality within and across clusters. Analytical and simulation results show that our scheme can significantly improve communication efficiency while providing social fairness     

Virtual base stations for wireless mobile ad hoc communications: an infrastructure for the infrastructure‐less

In this paper, we propose a new protocol for wireless mobile ad hoc networks, which establishes a dynamic wireless mobile infrastructure. The proposed protocol, namely, the virtual base stations (VBS) protocol, mimics and maintains the operation of the conventional fixed infrastructure in cellular networks. In the VBS protocol, a mobile node is elected from a set of nominees to act as a temporary base station within its zone. We provide proofs for the correctness of the VBS protocol, and show lower and upper bounds for its global convergence time. Likewise, we study the characteristics and performance of VBS by means of simulation. It is shown that VBS scales well to large networks of mobile stations, and that it outperforms other infrastructure‐formation protocols in terms of stability. The VBS protocol would facilitate the development of a comprehensive and promising framework for quality of service (QoS) management in wireless mobile ad hoc networks once the proper integration of the MAC protocol with the routing and call admission control mechanisms is established. The VBS architecture lays the groundwork for assigning bandwidth, and/or implementing priorities, and hence for QoS‐based routing by conveying the quality of a path prior to call setup. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On-demand power management for ad hoc networks

Battery power is an important resource in ad hoc networks. It has been observed that in ad hoc networks, energy consumption does not reflect the communication activities in the network. Many existing energy conservation protocols based on electing a routing backbone for global connectivity are oblivious to traffic characteristics. In this paper, we propose an extensible on-demand power management framework for ad hoc networks that adapts to traffic load. Nodes maintain soft-state timers that determine power management transitions. By monitoring routing control messages and data transmission, these timers are set and refreshed on-demand. Nodes that are not involved in data delivery may go to sleep as supported by the MAC protocol. This soft state is aggregated across multiple flows and its maintenance requires no additional out-of-band messages. We implement a prototype of our framework in the ns-2 simulator that uses the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. Simulation studies using our scheme with the Dynamic Source Routing protocol show a reduction in energy consumption near 50% when compared to a network without power management under both long-lived CBR traffic and on–off traffic loads, with comparable throughput and latency. Preliminary results also show that it outperforms existing routing backbone election approaches.     

An energy‐efficient localized topology control algorithm for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks

Topology control plays an important role in the design of wireless ad hoc and sensor networks and has demonstrated its high capability in constructing networks with desirable characteristics such as sparser connectivity, lower transmission power, and smaller node degree. However, the enforcement of a topology control algorithm in a network may degrade the energy‐draining balancing capability of the network and thus reduce the network operational lifetime. For this reason, it is important to take into account energy efficiency in the design of a topology control algorithm in order to achieve prolonged network lifetime. In this paper, we propose a localized energy‐efficient topology control algorithm for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks with power control capability in network nodes. To achieve prolonged network lifetime, we introduce a concept called energy criticality avoidance and propose an energy criticality avoidance strategy in topology control and energy‐efficient routing. Through theoretical analysis and simulation results, we prove that the proposed topology control algorithm can maintain the global network connectivity with low complexity and can significantly prolong the lifetime of a multi‐hop wireless network as compared with existing topology control algorithms with little additional protocol overhead. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vulnerability assessment of ad hoc networks to MAC layer misbehavior

This paper describes a new vulnerability for the IEEE 802.11 protocol and studies its impact on degrading the performance of ad hoc networks. A host that exploits this new simple, but practical, vulnerability could cause devastating effects on the proper operation of the network protocols and hence severely degrade the performance. In this work, a misbehaving node fully cooperates by forwarding packets for other nodes and completely adheres to the proper selection of backoff intervals; however, it maliciously forces the forwarding operation to fail in order to either disrupt the route discovery process or to cause damage to existing flows routed though that node. As a result, the medium around the misbehaving node will be less congested and hence the node will obtain an increased unfair access to the channel. We use network simulations to show that such malicious misbehaviors have devastating effect on demoting the network performance and disrupting the protocol functioning. Hence, necessary extensions for existing detection systems are required to mitigate the effects of these new vulnerabilities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of MIMO cross‐layer MAC protocol based on antenna selection in ad hoc networks

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a cross‐layer (physical and MAC) design for multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) system that aims at maximizing the throughput of ad hoc networks by selecting the optimum antenna combination. Employing this cross‐layer design is shown to improve the overall network performance relative to the case where no antenna selection (AS) is used. To solve the node blocking problem associated with the IEEE 802.11 medium‐access control (MAC) protocol, the proposed protocol leverage the available degrees of freedom offered by the MIMO system to allow neighboring nodes to simultaneously communicate using the zero‐forcing (ZF) Bell‐labs layered space‐time (BLAST) architecture. Using the cross‐layer design, neighboring nodes share their optimum antenna selection (AS) information through control messages. Given this shared information, nodes set their decisions on the number of selected antennas based on the available spatial channels that guarantees collision‐free transmissions. At the destination node, the ZF receiver is employed to extract the desired user data while treating the data from neighboring users as interference. The performance of the proposed cross‐layer design is examined through simulations, where we show that the network throughput is significantly improved compared to conventional MAC protocols. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol work well in multihop wireless adhoc networks?

The IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol is the standard for wireless LANs; it is widely used in testbeds and simulations for wireless multihop ad hoc networks. However, this protocol was not designed for multihop networks. Although it can support some ad hoc network architecture, it is not intended to support the wireless mobile ad hoc network, in which multihop connectivity is one of the most prominent features. In this article we focus on the following question: can the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol function well in multihop networks? By presenting several serious problems encountered in an IEEE 802.11-based multihop network and revealing the in-depth cause of these problems, we conclude that the current version of this wireless LAN protocol does not function well in multihop ad hoc networks. We thus doubt whether the WaveLAN-based system is workable as a mobile ad hoc testbed     

The slow start power controlled MAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks and its performance analysis

We propose and evaluate the performance of a new MAC-layer protocol for mobile ad hoc networks, called the Slow Start Power Controlled (abbreviated SSPC) protocol. SSPC improves on IEEE 802.11 by using power control for the RTS/CTS and DATA frame transmissions, so as to reduce energy consumption and increase network throughput and lifetime. In our scheme the transmission power used for the RTS frames is not constant, but follows a slow start principle. The CTS frames, which are sent at maximum transmission power, prevent the neighbouring nodes from transmitting their DATA frames at power levels higher than a computed threshold, while allowing them to transmit at power levels less than that threshold. Reduced energy consumption is achieved by adjusting the node transmission power to the minimum required value for reliable reception at the receiving node, while increase in network throughput is achieved by allowing more transmissions to take place simultaneously. The slow start principle used for calculating the appropriate DATA frames transmission power and the possibility of more simultaneous collision-free transmissions differentiate the SSPC protocol from the other MAC solutions proposed for IEEE 802.11. Simulation results indicate that the SSPC protocol achieves a significant reduction in power consumption, average packet delay and frequency of RTS frame collisions, and a significant increase in network throughput and received-to-sent packets ratio compared to IEEE 802.11 protocol.     

Propagation delay influence in IEEE 802.11 outdoor networks

Originally, Wireless Local Area Networks served only small indoor areas. Nevertheless, the idea of employing IEEE 802.11 networks in large outdoor environments is a very attractive possibility. IEEE 802.11 technology offers several advantages: the low cost of equipment, its operation in the unlicensed spectrum and its higher data rates. Since the advent of the first IEEE 802.11 standard, a great deal of research has been carried out. So-called Wifi-based Long Distance networks are currently being deployed. In this paper, we study the suitability of employing IEEE 802.11 networks in large outdoor environments without modifying the standard working procedure. In such scenarios, IEEE 802.11 networks should offer coverage ranges of several kilometer, which leads to high propagation delay values. Thus, we analyze the influence of increasing propagation delay in the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. To carry out our analysis we present a mathematical model and simulation results. We provide an operating range in which IEEE 802.11 performance is feasible and establish a throughput threshold according to the propagation delay.     

一种自组网功率控制算法及分析

无线自组网中的移动节点大多依靠电池提供能量,因此能量是影响无线自组网性能的一个很大的瓶颈,作为事实上的无线自组网媒体接入协议,802.11并没有动态调整传输功率的能力,大大限制了网络的生存时间。采用功率控制可以提高节点的功率使用效率,减少相邻节点间的干扰,改善网络的性能。在802.11基础上提出一种基于信噪比的动态传输功率控制算法。通过进行计算机仿真,与802.11协议相比,在保持吞吐量性能的前提下,大大减少了节点的功率消耗,提高了节点的能量利用率。     

Saturation throughput analysis of multi‐rate IEEE 802.11 wireless networks

IEEE 802.11 protocol supports adaptive rate mechanism, which selects the transmission rate according to the condition of the wireless channel, to enhance the system performance. Thus, research of multi‐rate IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) performance has become one of the hot research topics. In this paper, we study the performance of multi‐rate IEEE 802.11 MAC over a Gaussian channel. An accurate analytical model is presented to compute the system saturation throughput. We validate our model in both single‐rate and multi‐rate networks through various simulations. The results show that our model is accurate and channel error has a significant impact on system performance. In addition, our numerical results show that the performance of single‐rate IEEE 802.11 DCF with basic access method is better than that with RTS/CTS mechanism in a high‐rate and high‐load network and vice versa. In a multi‐rate network, the performance of IEEE 802.11 DCF with RTS/CTS mechanism is better than that with basic access method in a congested and error‐prone wireless environment. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.