Supporting service differentiation in wireless packet networksusing distributed control

This paper investigates differentiated services in wireless packet networks using a fully distributed approach that supports service differentiation, radio monitoring, and admission control. While our proposal is generally applicable to distributed wireless access schemes, we design, implement, and evaluate our framework within the context of existing wireless technology. Service differentiation is based on the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) originally designed to support best-effort data services. We analyze the delay experienced by a mobile host implementing the IEEE 802.11 DCF and derive a closed-form formula. We then extend the DCF to provide service differentiation for delay-sensitive and best-effort traffic based on the results from the analysis. Two distributed estimation algorithms are proposed. These algorithms are evaluated using simulation, analysis, and experimentation. A virtual MAC (VMAC) algorithm passively monitors the radio channel and estimates locally achievable service levels. The VMAC estimates key MAC level statistics related to service quality such as delay, delay variation, packet collision, and packet loss. We show the efficiency of the VMAC algorithm through simulation and consider significantly overlapping cells and highly bursty traffic mixes. In addition, we implement and evaluate the VMAC in an experimental differentiated services wireless testbed. A virtual source (VS) algorithm utilizes the VMAC to estimate application-level service quality. The VS allows application parameters to be tuned in response to dynamic channel conditions based on “virtual delay curves.” We demonstrate through simulation that when these distributed victual algorithms are applied to the admission control of the radio channel then a globally stable state can be maintained without the need for complex centralized radio resource management     

Performance evaluation of polling systems for wireless localcommunication networks

This paper evaluates the performance of different polling systems used in wireless local networks where the transmission channel exhibits a nonstationary behavior. Many spatially dispersed data user terminals have been assumed to share a common short-range radio uplink channel to access a hub station. We have specifically considered cyclic polling systems with M queues (terminals), having the same general packet arrival process and general switchover period. The gated and exhaustive disciplines have been considered in ordering the transmission of the packets buffered at each terminal. By appropriately modeling the uplink channel, we propose analytical approaches to derive the average packet waiting time and the average cycle length for gated polling systems, combined with stop-and-wait (SW) and go-back-N (GBN) automatic repeat request (ARQ) techniques to control errors. A gated cyclic polling scheme combined with the selective-repeated (SR) stutter ARQ technique as well as an exhaustive cyclic polling scheme combined with SW, GBN, or SR stutter ARQ techniques, respectively, have also been considered In order to give an in-depth knowledge of the behavior of suitable polling alternatives for applications in wireless local communication networks     

Network-assisted resource management for wireless data networks

We propose a framework for network-assisted radio resource management in wireless data networks. This type of radio resource management techniques offer implementation and capacity benefits compared to conventional, interference-measurement based, dynamic channel assignment (DCA) algorithms. The basic idea is to use interbase signaling to shift most of the burden of the resource allocation from the air interface to the backbone infrastructure. By exchanging channel assignment as well as other relevant information in real time through the backbone network, each base can calculate the impact of a resource assignment on the system. As a result, rapid interference measurements, which are typically needed to implement DCA schemes, are replaced by a limited amount of path loss measurements and the computation of interference conditions by the base stations. This significantly reduces the measurement and over-the-air signaling requirements, and can also provide an opportunity for a better optimization of the system performance. We focus on two specific algorithms: network-assisted least-interference-based dynamic packet assignment (NA-LI-DPA) and network-assisted dynamic packet assignment with throughput optimization (NA-DPA). NA-LI-DPA closely resembles a least-interference-based dynamic channel assignment algorithm, and NA-DPA attempts to further improve the overall system throughput. The algorithms, as defined, are appropriate for a best-effort data service, where the primary goal is to provide a higher throughput. However, it will be clear from the discussion that it is also feasible to alter the algorithms to optimize performance metrics other than throughput, e.g., to ensure a certain quality of service. We show through simulation that, for a system like enhanced general packet radio service (EGPRS) system, NA-DPA can provide a throughput that is 50% higher than random packet assignment, and 25% higher than that obtained by conventional DCA algorithms     

Cooperative Communication Protocols in Wireless Networks: Performance Analysis and Optimum Power Allocation

In this paper, symbol-error-rate (SER) performance analysis and optimum power allocation are provided for uncoded cooperative communications in wireless networks with either decode-and-forward (DF) or amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperation protocol, in which source and relay send information to destination through orthogonal channels. In case of the DF cooperation systems, closed-form SER formulation is provided for uncoded cooperation systems with PSK and QAM signals. Moreover, an SER upper bound as well as an approximation are established to show the asymptotic performance of the DF cooperation systems, where the SER approximation is asymptotically tight at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Based on the asymptotically tight SER approximation, an optimum power allocation is determined for the DF cooperation systems. In case of the AF cooperation systems, we obtain at first a simple closed-form moment generating function (MGF) expression for the harmonic mean to avoid the hypergeometric functions as commonly used in the literature. By taking advantage of the simple MGF expression, we obtain a closed-form SER performance analysis for the AF cooperation systems with PSK and QAM signals. Moreover, an SER approximation is also established which is asymptotically tight at high SNR. Based on the asymptotically tight SER approximation, an optimum power allocation is determined for the AF cooperation systems. In both the DF and AF cooperation systems, it turns out that an equal power strategy is good, but in general not optimum in cooperative communications. The optimum power allocation depends on the channel link quality. An interesting result is that in case that all channel links are available, the optimum power allocation does not depend on the direct link between source and destination, it depends only on the channel links related to the relay. Finally, we compare the performance of the cooperation systems with either DF or AF protocol. It is shown that the performance of a systems with the DF cooperation protocol is better than that with the AF protocol. However, the performance gain varies with different modulation types and channel conditions, and the gain is limited. For example, in case of BPSK modulation, the performance gain cannot be larger than 2.4 dB; and for QPSK modulation, it cannot be larger than 1.2 dB. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate the theoretical analysis.     

QoS‐aware packet forwarding in MIMO sensor networks: a cross‐layer approach

Multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) enabled wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming increasingly important since significant performance enhancement can be realized. In this paper, we propose a packet forward strategy for MIMO sensor networks by jointly considering channel coding, rate adaptation, and power allocation. Each sensor node has multiple antennas and uses orthogonal space time block codes (OSTBC) to exploit both spatial and temporal diversities. The objective is to determine the optimal routing path that achieves the minimum symbol error rate (SER) subject to the source‐to‐destination (S‐D) energy consumption constraint. This SER‐based quality‐of‐service (QoS) aware packet forwarding problem is formulated into the framework of dynamic programming (DP). We then propose a low‐complexity and near‐optimal approach to considerably reduce the computation complexity, which includes state space partition and state aggregation techniques. Simulations indicate that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms traditional algorithms. Further still, the performance gain increases with tighter S‐D energy constraint. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of Terminal Movement on the Performance of IEEE 802.11 g Wireless LAN Systems in Simulated Radio Channels

The effect of terminal movement on the performance of the IEEE 802.11 g wireless LAN (WLAN) system is evaluated using a measurement set-up including a radio channel simulator. The evaluation is based on laboratory measurements of WLAN PC cards in different simulated radio environments. In the measurements, two different radio channel models are used; the exponential channel model and the UMTS vehicular channel model. The measurement results indicate promising operation of IEEE 802.11 g WLAN systems as such. However, the use of different packet sizes has a significant effect on the system behaviour. With large packets the terminal is more likely to experience channel estimation errors than with small packets. This is due to the fact that the IEEE 802.11 g receiver estimates the channel only once per frame, and uses this estimation over the entire frame. Based on the measurement results we suggest a modification to the medium access control (MAC) layer operation that overcomes this problem: the use of optimized fragmentation.     

Error probability minimizing pilots for OFDM with M-PSK modulation over Rayleigh-fading channels

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with pilot symbol assisted channel estimation is a promising technique for high rate transmissions over wireless frequency-selective fading channels. In this paper, we analyze the symbol error rate (SER) performance of OFDM with M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK) modulation over Rayleigh-fading channels, in the presence of channel estimation errors. Both least-squares error (LSE) and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) channel estimators are considered. For prescribed power, our analysis not only yields exact SER formulas, but also quantifies the performance loss due to channel estimation errors. We also optimize the number of pilot symbols, the placement of pilot symbols, and the power allocation between pilot and information symbols, to minimize this loss, and thereby minimize SER. Simulations corroborate our SER performance analysis, and numerical results are presented to illustrate our optimal claims.     

Error Rate Analysis of Uplink MC-CDMA Systems under Imperfect Channel Estimation

Theoretical error rate performance of wireless communication systems are usually determined assuming that the perfect channel state information (CSI) is available at the receiver. However, in actual practice, the channel gains at the receiver are obtained via using some channel estimation (CE) techniques. Due to inherent presence of noise, the CE is not perfect resulting in the performance degradation. In this paper, we evaluate the error rate performance of an uplink multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) system, considering different modulation techniques, where CE is performed using pilot symbol assisted (PSA) minimum mean-square error (MMSE) CE technique. The symbol error rate (SER) analysis of an uplink MC-CDMA system using multiuser detection techniques, such as MMSE and zero forcing (ZF), is presented under imperfect CE. Simulated results for SER are also shown to confirm the accuracy of the analytically derived results.     

Performance of H.263 video transmission over wireless channelsusing hybrid ARQ

This paper proposes a hybrid ARQ error control scheme based on the concatenation of a Reed-Solomon (RS) code and a rate compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) code for low-bit-rate video transmission over wireless channels. The concatenated hybrid ARQ scheme we propose combines the advantages of both type-I and type-II hybrid ARQ schemes. Certain error correction capability is provided in each (re)transmitted packet, and the information can be recovered from each transmission or retransmission alone if the errors are within the error correction capability (similar to type-I hybrid ARQ). The retransmitted packet contains redundancy bits which, when combined with the previous transmission, result in a more powerful RS/convolutional concatenated code to recover information if error correction fails for the individual transmissions (similar to type-II hybrid ARQ). Bit-error rate (BER) or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a radio channel changes over time due to mobile movement and fading. The channel quality at any instant depends on the previous channel conditions. For the accurate analysis of the performance of the hybrid ARQ scheme, we use a multistate Markov chain (MSMC) to model the radio channel at the data packet level. We propose a method to partition the range of the received SNR into a set of states for constructing the model so that the difference between the error rate of the real radio channel and that of the MSMC model is minimized. Based on the model, we analyze the performance of the concatenated hybrid ARQ scheme. The results give valuable insight into the effects of the error protection capability in each packet, the mobile speed, and the number of retransmissions. Finally, the transmission of H.263 coded video over a wireless channel with error protection provided by the concatenated hybrid ARQ scheme is studied by means of simulations     

Information Theoretic Foundations of Adaptive Coded Modulation

In wireless/mobile communications, terminals adapt their rate and transmit power or, more in general, their coding and modulation scheme, depending on the time-varying channel conditions. This paper presents, in a tutorial form, the information theoretic framework underlying such ldquoadaptive modulationrdquo techniques. First, we review fading channel models, channel state information assumptions, and related capacity results. Then, we treat the case of input power constraint, where the optimal input distribution is Gaussian. Finally, we address the case of discrete modulations. In order to treat the latter, we make use of the recently developed method of ldquomercury-waterfillingrdquo, based on the relationship between mutual information and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) estimation of the channel input from the channel output. While the traditional design of adaptive modulation schemes based on uncoded bit-error rate (BER) involves the optimization over a discrete set of signal constellations, when powerful (i.e., capacity approaching) coding schemes are used the corresponding adaptive coded modulation design becomes surprisingly simple. The regime of very powerful coding is justified by the use of modern coding schemes, such as turbo codes and low-density parity-check codes, able to perform close to channel capacity at very small BER.     

Efficient radio resource management for wireless multimedia communications: a multidimensional QoS-based packet scheduler

Future wireless multimedia systems will support a variety of services with diverse range of capabilities and bit rates. For these systems, it is highly desired for real-time conversational and non-real-time services to efficiently share the available channels and bandwidth in an optimized way. The partitioned resource shaping with either fixed or a slow changing dynamic, proposed for conventional packet scheduling techniques, proves difficult and inefficient under fast-changing dynamics of radio channel and traffic. By taking into account almost all the aspects (dimensions) of quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning, the proposed unified fast dynamic multidimensional QoS-based packet scheduler (MQPS) in this paper elegantly and efficiently encapsulates features of many possible packet scheduling strategies. MQPS applies an optimization and tuning mechanism to packet scheduling weights to adopt the most appropriate packet scheduling and channel assignment strategy in response to the varying traffic and radio channel conditions. As an example, the technique is applied to a high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) system. It is shown that MQPS provides significantly better performance than existing techniques by satisfying all the requirements of a successful QoS provisioning to maximum possible level simultaneously.     

Next Generation Wireless Mobile System Efficient, Fair, Class Based Packet Scheduling Algorithm

Efficient utilization of network resources is a key goal for emerging broadband wireless access systems (BWAS). This is a complex goal to achieve due to the heterogeneous service nature and diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements of various applications that BWAS support. Packet scheduling is an important activity that affects BWAS QoS outcomes. This paper proposes a novel packet scheduling mechanism that improves QoS in mobile wireless networks which exploit IP as a transport technology for data transfer between BWAS base stations and mobile users at the radio transmission layer. In order to improve BWAS QoS the new packet algorithm makes changes at both the IP and the radio layers. The new packet scheduling algorithm exploits handoff priority scheduling principles and takes into account buffer occupancy and channel conditions. The packet scheduling mechanism also incorporates the concept of fairness. Performance results were obtained by computer simulation and compared to the well known algorithms. Results show that by exploiting the new packet scheduling algorithm, the transport system is able to provide a low handoff packet drop rate, low packet forwarding rate, low packet delay and ensure fairness amongst the users of different services.     

Wireless Packet Scheduling Algorithm for OFDMA System Based on Time‐Utility and Channel State

In this paper, we propose an urgency‐ and efficiencybased wireless packet scheduling (UEPS) algorithm that is able to schedule real‐time (RT) and non‐real‐time (NRT) traffics at the same time while supporting multiple users simultaneously at any given scheduling time instant. The UEPS algorithm is designed to support wireless downlink packet scheduling in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system, which is a strong candidate as a wireless access method for the next generation of wireless communications. The UEPS algorithm uses the time‐utility function as a scheduling urgency factor and the relative status of the current channel to the average channel status as an efficiency indicator of radio resource usage. The design goal of the UEPS algorithm is to maximize throughput of NRT traffics while satisfying quality‐of‐service (QoS) requirements of RT traffics. The simulation study shows that the UEPS algorithm is able to give better throughput performance than existing wireless packet scheduling algorithms such as proportional fair (PF) and modifiedlargest weighted delay first (M‐LWDF), while satisfying the QoS requirements of RT traffics such as average delay and packet loss rate under various traffic loads.     

Broadband MIMO-OFDM wireless communications

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a popular method for high data rate wireless transmission. OFDM may be combined with antenna arrays at the transmitter and receiver to increase the diversity gain and/or to enhance the system capacity on time-varying and frequency-selective channels, resulting in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) configuration. The paper explores various physical layer research challenges in MIMO-OFDM system design, including physical channel measurements and modeling, analog beam forming techniques using adaptive antenna arrays, space-time techniques for MIMO-OFDM, error control coding techniques, OFDM preamble and packet design, and signal processing algorithms used to perform time and frequency synchronization, channel estimation, and channel tracking in MIMO-OFDM systems. Finally, the paper considers a software radio implementation of MIMO-OFDM.     

Reliable Multimedia Transmission Over Cognitive Radio Networks Using Fountain Codes

With the explosive growth of wireless multimedia applications over the wireless Internet in recent years, the demand for radio spectral resources has increased significantly. In order to meet the quality of service, delay, and large bandwidth requirements, various techniques such as source and channel coding, distributed streaming, multicast etc. have been considered. In this paper, we propose a technique for distributed multimedia transmission over the secondary user network, which makes use of opportunistic spectrum access with the help of cognitive radios. We use digital fountain codes to distribute the multimedia content over unused spectrum and also to compensate for the loss incurred due to primary user interference. Primary user traffic is modelled as a Poisson process. We develop the techniques to select appropriate channels and study the trade-offs between link reliability, spectral efficiency and coding overhead. Simulation results are presented for the secondary spectrum access model.     

A New Class of Generative Models for Burst-Error Characterization in Digital Wireless Channels

Accurate and efficient generative models are significant for the design and performance evaluation of wireless communication protocols as well as error-control schemes. In this paper, deterministic processes are used to derive a new class of hard and soft generative models for simulation of digital wireless channels with hard and soft decision outputs, respectively. The proposed deterministic-process-based generative models (DPBGMs) are all based on a properly parameterized and sampled deterministic process followed by a threshold detector and two parallel mappers. The target hard and soft error sequences are provided by computer simulations of uncoded enhanced general packet radio service (EGPRS) systems with typical urban and rural area channels. Simulation results indicate that the proposed DPBGMs enable us to approximate very closely all the interested burst-error statistics of the target hard and soft error sequences. The validity of the suggested DPBGMs is further confirmed by the excellent match of the simulated frame-error rates and residual bit-error rates of coded EGPRS systems obtained from the target and generated error sequences     

CR-CEA: A collision- and energy-aware routing method for cognitive radio wireless sensor networks

Currently, working in the overcrowded shared unlicensed spectrum band, leads to a reduction in the quality of communications in wireless networks. This makes a considerable increase in packet loss caused by collisions that necessitates packets retransmissions. In the case of wireless sensor networks (WSN), a large amount of energy of sensor nodes will be wasted by these retransmissions. Cognitive radio technology makes it possible for sensor nodes, to opportunistically use licensed bands with better propagation characteristics and less congestion. In this paper a routing method for cognitive radio wireless sensor networks (CR-CEA) is presented, that is based on a cross-layer design that jointly considers route and spectrum selection. The CR-CEA method has two main phases: next hop selection and channel selection. The routing is performed hop-by-hop with local information and decisions, which are more compatible with sensor networks. Primary user activity and prevention from interference with them, is considered in all spectrum decisions. It uniformly distributes frequency channels between adjacent nodes, which lead to a local reduction in collision probability. This clearly affects energy consumption in all sensor nodes. In CR-CEA, route selection is energy-aware and a learning-based technique is used to reduce the packet delay in terms of hop-count. The simulation results reveal that by applying cognitive radio technology to WSNs and selecting a proper operating channel, we can consciously decrease collision probability. This saves energy of sensor nodes and improves the network lifetime.     

一种无线数据传输方案及实现

本文介绍了一种数据信号的无线传输方案,给出了该方案的硬件设计电路框图和软件的主程序流程图.该方案由单片机控制通过无线调制解调芯片与常规UHF、VHF调频电台相连通信,同时与具有标准RS-232接口的计算机数据设备相连,从而实现数据信号的无线传输,由此方案可进一步可组成计算机分组无线网.     

Delay analysis of selective-repeat ARQ with applications to link adaptation in wireless packet data systems

Radio link control (RLC) protocols are typically employed for reliable in-sequence delivery of service data units (SDUs) in wireless packet data systems. The RLC layer segments packets obtained from the upper layer (referred to as SDUs) into smaller RLC transmission units (or blocks) and uses selective-repeat automatic repeat request (SR-ARQ) for error recovery of RLC blocks. In earlier work, SR-ARQ performance is typically characterized in terms of the long-term throughput or in-sequence delivery delay of RLC blocks. The SDU delivery delay which is a more meaningful measure of RLC performance (in terms of the service provided to a higher layer, e.g., transmission control protocol) has not been quantified. In this paper, we analyze the SDU delivery delay of SR-ARQ as a function of the SDU size and the channel coding scheme employed. Closed-form delay expressions as well as approximations are provided. The analysis is verified through enhanced general packet radio service RLC simulations. Based on the analysis, we propose that link adaptation be backlog dependent in order to reduce the SDU delivery delay at the RLC layer.     

OFDM通信系统中的一种通用的信道估计模型

本文根据DFT的一个性质为OFDM通信系统构造了一种通用信道估计模型。该模型利用系统子信道中的一部分专门进行信道估计,适用于慢消失信道。该模型同最小平方差（LS）和最小均方差（LMMSE）相结合分别形成两种信道估计方法,并从理论角度分别分析它们的计算复杂性和均方差性能。对多径信道仿真表明,基于LS的方法误符号率性能比基于LMMSE的方法差2－3dB,但是计算复杂度较低。总之,此信道估计模型的计算复杂度和性能随着用于信道估计的子信道数目增加而增加,当所用子信道数目是周期头长度的两倍时,达到计算量和估计性能的最佳平衡。