Performance Analysis for a New Medium Access Control Protocol in Wireless LANs

One fundamental issue in high-speed wireless local area networks (LANs) is to develop efficient medium access control (MAC) protocols. In this paper, we focus on the performance improvement in both MAC layer and transport layer by using a novel medium access control protocol for high-speed wireless LANs deploying carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). We first present a recently proposed distributed contention-based MAC protocol utilizing a Fast Collision Resolution (FCR) algorithm and show that the proposed FCR algorithm provides high throughput and low latency while improving the fairness performance. The performance of the FCR algorithm is compared with that of the IEEE 802.11 MAC algorithm via extensive simulation studies on both MAC layer and transport layer. The results show that the FCR algorithm achieves a significantly higher efficiency than the IEEE 802.11 MAC and can significantly improve transport layer performance.     

A Beacon-Based Collision-Free Channel Access Scheme for IEEE 802.11 WLANs

In IEEE 802.11 based WLAN standard, distributed coordination function is the fundamental medium access control (MAC) technique. It employs a CSMA/CA with random binary exponential backoff algorithm and provides contention-based distributed channel access for stations to share the wireless medium. However, performance of this mechanism drops dramatically due to random structure of the backoff process, high collision probability and frame errors. That is why development of an efficient MAC protocol, providing both high throughput for data traffic and quality of service (QoS) support for real-time applications, has become a major focus in WLAN research. In this paper, we propose an adaptive beacon-based collision-free MAC adaptation. The proposed scheme makes use of beacon frames sent periodically by access point, lets stations enter the collision-free state and reduces the number of idle slots regardless of the number of stations and their traffic load (saturated or unsaturated) on the medium. Simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme dramatically enhances the overall throughput and supports QoS by reducing the delay, delay variation and dropping probability of frames.     

MiFi: a framework for fairness and QoS assurance for current IEEE 802.11 networks with multiple access points

In this paper, we present a framework for providing fair service and supporting quality of service (QoS) requirements in IEEE 802.11 networks with multiple access points (APs). These issues becomes critical as IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN are widely deployed in nationwide networks, linking tens of thousands of "hot-spots" for providing both real-time (voice) and non real-time (data) services to a large population of mobile users. However, both fairness and QoS guarantees cannot be supported in the current 802.11 standard. Our system, termed MiFi, relies on centralized coordination of the APs. During any given time of the "contention-free" period only a set of non-interfering APs is activated while the others are silenced. Moreover, the amount of service granted to an AP is proportional to its load and the system's performance is optimized by employing efficient scheduling algorithms. We show that such a system can be implemented without requiring any modification of the underlying MAC protocol standard or the behavior of the mobile stations. Our scheme is complementary to the emerging 802.11e standard for QoS and guarantees to overcome the hidden node and the overlapping cell problems. Our simulations establish that the system supports fairness and hence can provide QoS guarantees for real-time traffic, while maintaining a relative high throughput.     

All-optical WDM multi-rings with differentiated QoS

This article considers all-optical WDM networks based on a slotted multichannel ring topology, where nodes are equipped with one fixed-wavelength receiver and one wavelength-tunable transmitter; and shows how to design very effective MAC protocols that provide packet-mode transport to multiple information flows with different QoS requirements. As an example, we describe SR3, a collision-free slotted MAC protocol which combines a packet scheduling strategy (called SRR), a fairness control algorithm (called MMR); and a reservation mechanism. SRR achieves an efficient exploitation of the available bandwidth, MMR guarantees fair throughput access to each node, and SR3, by permitting slot reservations, leads to tighter control on access delays, and can thus effectively support traffic classes with different QoS requirements     

Cross-Layer MAC Protocol and Holistic Opportunistic Scheduling with Adaptive Power Control for QoS in WiMAX

Providing quality of service (QoS) to different service classes with integrated real-time and non-real-time traffic is an important issue in broadband wireless access networks. Opportunistic MAC (OMAC) is a novel view of communication over spatiotemporally varying wireless link whereby the multi-user diversity is exploited rather than combated to maximize bandwidth efficiency or system throughput. It combines cross-layer design features and opportunistic scheduling scheme to achieve high utilization while providing QoS support to various applications. Channel characteristics, traffic characteristics and queue characteristics are the essential factors in the design of opportunistic scheduling algorithms. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer MAC scheduling framework in WiMAX point-to-multipoint (PMP) systems and a corresponding opportunistic scheduling algorithm with an adaptive power control scheme to provide QoS support to the heterogeneous traffic. Extensive simulation experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performance of our proposal. The simulation results show that our proposed solution can improve the performance of the WiMAX PMP systems in terms of packet loss rate, packet delay and system throughput.     

An optimization framework for balancing throughput and fairness in wireless networks with QoS support

Quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning, high system throughput, and fairness assurance are indispensable for heterogeneous traffic in future wireless broadband networks. With limited radio resources, increasing system throughput and maintaining fairness are conflicting performance metrics, leading to a natural tradeoff between these two measures. Balancing system throughput and fairness is desired. In this paper, we consider an interference-limited wireless network, and derive a generic optimization framework to obtain an optimal relationship of system throughput and fairness with QoS support and efficient resource utilization, by introducing the bargaining floor. From the relationship curve, different degrees of performance tradeoff between throughput and fairness can be obtained by choosing different bargaining floors. In addition, our framework facilitates call admission control to effectively guarantee QoS of. multimedia traffic. The solutions of resource allocation obtained from the optimization framework achieve the pareto optimality, demonstrating efficient use of network resources.     

Performance Evaluation of a New MAC Protocol for the CDMA Interconnection Network

A CDMA mobile system consists of subsystems that transmit and receive call control messages and traffic messages through the CDMA Interconnection Network (CIN). To assure high throughput and short delay in the CIN, an efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol should be provided.In this study, we propose a new MAC protocol for CDMA interconnection networks in order to provide real-time communications in CDMA mobile systems. Also, we evaluate the delay performance of the proposed MAC protocol and compare it with that of existing MAC protocol. Through numerical examples, we show that the proposed protocol provides better delay performance than the existing protocol.     

Cross-Layer Scheduling with QoS Support over a Distributed Queuing MAC for Wireless LANs

Distributed Queuing Collision Avoidance (DQCA) is an efficient MAC protocol designed for infrastructure Wireless LANs. In this paper, four algorithms are proposed that alter the FIFO scheduling order of DQCA in order to meet specific network requirements. The proposed schemes combine the efficiency of opportunistic scheduling with the QoS provisioning through service differentiation. The opportunistic policy encourages transmissions at higher rates when the channel condition is good and is implemented through a cross-layer dialogue between the PHY and the MAC layers. The key idea of service differentiation is to assign priorities to traffic flows with different requirements in order to provide QoS guarantees. The throughput, delay and jitter performance of the proposed schemes has been evaluated through simulations for a scenario with heterogeneous traffic of voice, video, best-effort and background data traffic flows.     

Randomly Ranked Mini Slots for Fair and Efficient Medium Access Control in Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc networks offer infrastructure-free operation, where no entity can provide reliable coordination among nodes. Medium access Control (MAC) protocols in such a network must overcome the inherent unreliability of the network and provide high throughput and adequate fairness to the different flows of traffic. In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol that can achieve an excellent balance between throughput and fairness. Our protocol has two versions: randomly ranked mini slots (RRMS) utilizes control-message handshakes similar to IEEE 802.11. Randomly ranked mini slots with busy tone (RRMS-BT) is the better performer of the two, but requires a receiver busy tone. The protocol makes use of granule time slots and sequences of pseudorandom numbers to maximize spatial reuse and divide the throughput fairly among nodes. We demonstrate the performance of this protocol using simulation with fixed and random topologies and show that these results are robust to difficult network configurations and unsynchronized clocks. We further develop novel metrics of long-term and short-term fairness for rigorous performance evaluation. Our simulation results include a detailed comparison between the proposed protocol and existing protocols that have been shown to excel in terms of throughput or fairness     

Wide-band TD-CDMA MAC with minimum-power allocation and rate- and BER-scheduling for wireless multimedia networks

A wide-band time-division-code-division multiple-access (TD-CDMA) medium access control (MAC) protocol is introduced in this paper. A new minimum-power allocation algorithm is developed to minimize the interference experienced by a code channel such that heterogeneous bit-error rate (BER) requirements of multimedia traffic are satisfied. Further, from analysis of the maximum capacity of a time slot, it is concluded that both rate and BER scheduling are necessary to reach a maximum capacity. Based on the new minimum-power allocation algorithm as well as on rate and BER scheduling concepts, a new scheduling scheme is proposed to serve packets with heterogeneous BER and quality of service (QoS) requirements in different time slots. To further enhance the performance of the MAC protocol, an effective connection admission control (CAC) algorithm is developed based on the new minimum-power allocation algorithm. Simulation results show that the new wide-band TD-CDMA MAC protocol satisfies the QoS requirements of multimedia traffic and achieves high overall system throughput.     

Improved priority access, bandwidth allocation and traffic scheduling for DOCSIS cable networks

The Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) is intended to support IP flows over HFC (hybrid fiber/coax) networks with significantly higher data rates than analog modems and Integrated Service Digital Network (ISDN) links for high quality audio, video and interactive services. To support quality-of-service (QoS) for such applications, it is important for HFC networks to provide effective media access and traffic scheduling mechanisms. In this paper, we first present a multilevel priority collision resolution scheme with adaptive contention window adjustment. The proposed collision resolution scheme separates and resolves collisions for different traffic priority classes (such as delay-sensitive and best effort streams), thus achieving the capability for preemptive priorities. Second, a novel MAC (media access control) scheduling mechanism and a new bandwidth allocation scheme are proposed to support multimedia traffic over DOCSIS-compliant cable networks. It is shown through simulation results that throughput and delay performance have been improved for the transmission of real-time VBR (variable bit rate) traffic as compared to current DOCSIS specifications.     

HSDPA中M-LWDF实时业务分组调度算法的改进

HSDPA是UMTS的最新演进。HSDPA采用先进的技术包括AMC、HARQ和快速小区选择以提供更高的数据速率。在HSDPA系统中,无线资源管理功能主要是由分组调度算法来实现,研究先进的分组调度算法是提高数据业务吞吐量、保证用户间的公平性、满足业务QoS的根本。主要介绍了实时业务算法M-LWDF,针对其在公平性方面的缺陷进行了改进,并对上述2种算法在中断率和吞吐量上进行了试验分析。     

Busy tone contention protocol: a new high‐throughput and energy‐efficient wireless local area network medium access control protocol using busy tone

Design of an efficient wireless medium access control (MAC) protocol is a challenging task due to the time‐varying characteristics of wireless communication channel and different delay requirements in diverse applications. To support variable number of active stations and varying network load conditions, random access MAC protocols are employed. Existing wireless local area network (WLAN) protocol (IEEE 802.11) is found to be inefficient at high data rates because of the overhead associated with the contention resolution mechanism employed. The new amendments of IEEE 802.11 that support multimedia traffic (IEEE 802.11e) are at the expense of reduced data traffic network efficiency. In this paper, we propose a random access MAC protocol called busy tone contention protocol (BTCP) that uses out‐of‐band signals for contention resolution in WLANs. A few variants of this protocol are also proposed to meet the challenges in WLAN environments and application requirements. The proposed BTCP isolate multimedia traffics from background data transmissions and gives high throughput irrespective of the number of contending stations in the network. As a result, in BTCP, admission control of multimedia flows becomes simple and well defined. Studies of the protocol, both analytically and through simulations under various network conditions, have shown to give better performance in comparison with the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS support for integrated services over CATV

Cable TV has emerged as a promising access network infrastructure for the delivery of voice, video, and high-speed data traffic. A central issue in the design of protocols for CATV networks is to support different levels of QoS for diverse user applications. While CATV service providers and equipment have standardized, in the so-called MCNS protocol, the basic network architecture and interfaces, issues in the MAC layer for QoS support are likely to be left for differentiation in vendor products. This article first presents an overview of the basic CATV network architectural assumptions and the set of QoS requirements for supporting integrated services over CATV. It then discusses a MAC layer scheduling protocol that can efficiently multiplex constant bit rate traffic, such as voice over IP with guaranteed delay bound, and best-effort traffic, such as data services with minimum bit rate guarantee, while achieving fairness on any excess available bandwidth. The performance of this algorithm is illustrated by simulation results using Opnet. We also discuss a dynamic polling mechanism that enhances the link utilization while preserving delay bounds for latency-critical traffic     

Provisioning of multimedia services in 802.11-based networks: facts and challenges

QoS provisioning in IEEE 802.11 networks is a nontrivial task due to a certain degree of randomness in the contention-based medium access control protocol. The problem often resides in the fact that flows belonging to the same service class use the same MAC parameters regardless of their respective bit rates. Assigning static MAC parameters confines WLAN deployment possibilities, and often leads to throughput fairness rather than perceived QoS fairness. This creates situations where network resources as well as their potential profitability are underex-ploited. Restricting the volume of traffic load carried by the network is a primordial task in order to preserve QoS performances of active multimedia services. In this article we review existing approaches to deliver QoS to real-time services in order to gain thorough insight into inhibiting factors inherent to contention-based 802.11 networks. The emphasis is put on studying the possible means to sustain QoS guarantees, which is of utmost importance for network operators willing to commit theirs underlying resources through service level agreements.     

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).     

动态TDMA时隙分配算法在数据链中的仿真

固定TDMA分配算法能够保证节点数据发送的公平性,但不可能针对当前业务和网络状态进行时隙预留分配,很难实现差别服务和提供支持QoS（服务质量）的机制。因此提出一种适用于TTNT（战术瞄准网络技术）数据链通信系统的动态TDMA时隙分配算法,在高负载的网络环境下,这种算法加入了优先级机制并根据业务量轻重对各节点采取不同的发送策略,对时隙有较高利用率,提高了Ad Hoc（自组织网）网络系统吞吐量。在OPNET网络仿真平台上进行了仿真验证,仿真结果表明该算法在吞吐量和时延方面都优于固定TDMA算法。     

一种基于IEEE802.11支持QoS自适应调度器模型和算法

这篇文章提出了能够有效支持QoS的IEEE802．11自适应调度器模型。和以往的支持QoS的调度器模型相比，这里根据在主控接入点(MAP：Master Access Point)和用户终端(UT：User Termination)的各自延时需求对满足不同的传输机制的分组流进行自适应调度。这种机制不仅完全兼容当前支持QoS的IEEE802．11MAC协议标准，而且能够有效减少由于实时传输带来的分组延时，增加满足不同信道负载和带宽要求的数据流的吞吐率。实时测试得到的数据基本验证了这个要求。     

A Novel Bandwidth Allocation Algorithm for IEEE 802.16 TDD Mode Wireless Access Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel bandwidth allocation algorithm for a two-tier hierarchy in IEEE 802.16 time division duplex mode wireless access networks under symmetric and/or asymmetric uplink and downlink traffic input. We demonstrate the performance of the new bandwidth allocation algorithm in terms of accumulated throughput (cumulative bandwidth) and fairness in both infinite and finite buffer cases compared with others by simulations. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm not only can provide much better fairness and maintain satisfactory QoS support and high cumulative bandwidth but also in the case of finite buffer depth is less buffer-consuming than the others, meaning that the hardware cost can be reduced by employing the proposed algorithm.     

基于动态规划法的无线Mesh网络QoS路由算法和性能评价

该文针对时延敏感的多媒体业务吞吐率和传输可靠性的考虑,在无线Mesh网络中,引入动态规划和跨层设计方法设计QoS路由算法。在假设的网络模型上,提出了一个新的基于MAC层信息的综合凸规划路由准则,以及基于此实现的路由算法CPRMQS,详细给出了利用动态规划法解决路由优化问题的算法流程和样例分析。最后通过仿真验证了该算法的可行性,并给出了基于DSR扩展协议的性能评价,其中包括吞吐率和延时等性能。