MA‐WATM: A new approach towards an adaptive wireless ATM network

In a cellular multimedia network like wireless ATM (WATM), self control seems primordial. Our new approach is based on the application of DAI (distributed artificial intelligence) techniques in order to build a selfadaptive network within random nonuniform traffic conditions. Attempting to achieve a high network capacity in terms of resource allocation and air interface BER (bit error rate), we propose to apply intelligent agent features to enhance the architecture of WATM systems. In fact, the intelligent platform MAWATM (multiagent wireless ATM) is used to provide a flexible integration of the multiagent technique in wireless entities, BSs (base stations), MSs (mobile stations) and MSCs (mobile switching centers). Two applications are investigated and explored by simulations in order to bear out the feasibility of the multiagent approach.     

The effects of asymmetry on TCP performance

In this paper, we study the effects of network asymmetry on endtoend TCP performance and suggest techniques to improve it. The networks investigated in this study include a wireless cable modem network and a packet radio network, both of which can form an important part of a mobile ad hoc network. In recent literature (e.g., [18]), asymmetry has been considered in terms of a mismatch in bandwidths in the two directions of a data transfer. We generalize this notion of bandwidth asymmetry to other aspects of asymmetry, such as latency and mediaaccess, and packet error rate, which are common in widearea wireless networks. Using a combination of experiments on real networks and simulation, we analyze TCP performance in such networks where the throughput achieved is not solely a function of the link and traffic characteristics in the direction of data transfer (the forward direction), but depends significantly on the reverse direction as well. We focus on bandwidth and latency asymmetries, and propose and evaluate several techniques to improve endtoend performance. These include techniques to decrease the rate of acknowledgments on the constrained reverse channel (ack congestion control and ack filtering), techniques to reduce source burstiness when acknowledgments are infrequent (TCP sender adaptation), and algorithms at the reverse bottleneck router to schedule data and acks differently from FIFO (acksfirst scheduling).     

Intelligent information dissemination services in hybrid satellite‐wireless networks

The need for rapid deployment and user mobility suggest the use of a hybrid satellitewireless network infrastructure for important situation awareness and emergency response applications. An Intelligent Information Dissemination Service (IIDS) has been developed to support the dissemination and maintenance of extended situation awareness throughout such a network information infrastructure in a seamless manner. One of the goals of IIDS is to transparently handle the mismatches in characteristics of satellite and terrestrial wireless networks, allow effective utilization of available bandwidth, and support timely delivery of highly relevant information. IIDS achieves the above by implementing user profile aggregation that incrementally aggregates users into communities sharing common interests to enable multicastbased information dissemination. Based on the user grouping, semantic profile matching customizes information streams based on matching user group interest profiles. By taking into account expected changes in user profiles, profileoriented data dissemination achieves predictive push and caching that anticipates future user needs and minimizes latency of data request by making data available before they are explicitly requested. Finally, bandwidthaware filtering adapts information streams to resource bandwidth availability to gracefully hide the bandwidth mismatch between the satellite and wireless links in the hybrid network infrastructure. The IIDS software has been deployed on the Digital Wireless Battlefield Network (DWBN) that integrates commercial offtheshelf satellite and wireless products into a heterogeneous satellite/wireless hybrid network for supporting wireless mobile multimedia services.     

Mobility Management for Hierarchical Wireless Networks

In this paper, we consider the mobility management in large, hierarchically organized multihop wireless networks. The examples of such networks range from battlefield networks, emergency disaster relief and law enforcement etc. We present a novel network addressing architecture to accommodate mobility using a Home Agent concept akin to mobile IP. We distinguish between the physical routing hierarchy (dictated by geographical relationships between nodes) and logical hierarchy of subnets in which the members move as a group (e.g., company, brigade, battalion in the battlefield). The performance of the mobility management scheme is investigated through simulation.     

Tree multicast strategies in mobile,multihop wireless networks

Tree multicast is a well established concept in wired networks. Two versions, persource tree multicast (e.g., DVMRP) and shared tree multicast (e.g., Core Based Tree), account for the majority of the wireline implementations. In this paper, we extend the tree multicast concept to wireless, mobile, multihop networks for applications ranging from ad hoc networking to disaster recovery and battlefield. The main challenge in wireless, mobile networks is the rapidly changing environment. We address this issue in our design by: (a) using soft state (b) assigning different roles to nodes depending on their mobility (2level mobility model); (c) proposing an adaptive scheme which combines shared tree and persource tree benefits, and (d) dynamically relocating the shared tree Rendezvous Point (RP). A detailed wireless simulation model is used to evaluate various multicast schemes. The results show that persource trees perform better in heavy loads because of the more efficient traffic distribution; while shared trees are more robust to mobility and are more scalable to large network sizes. The adaptive tree multicast scheme, a hybrid between shared tree and persource tree, combines the advantages of both and performs consistently well across all load and mobility scenarios. The main contributions of this study are: the use of a 2level mobility model to improve the stability of the shared tree, the development of a hybrid, adaptive persource and shared tree scheme, and the dynamic relocation of the RP in the shared tree.     

Noise considerations for mixed‐signal RF IC transceivers

This paper discusses design tradeoffs for mixedsignal radio frequency integrated circuit (RF IC) transceivers for wireless applications in terms of noise, signal power, receiver linearity, and gain. During air wave transmission, the signal is corrupted by channel noise, adjacent interfering users, image signals, and multipath fading. Furthermore, the receiver corrupts the incoming signal due to RF circuit nonlinearity (intermodulation), electronic device noise, and digital switching noise. This tutorial paper gives an overview of the design tradeoffs needed to minimize RF noise in an integrated wireless transceiver. Fundamental device noise and the coupling of switching noise from digital circuits to sensitive analog sections and their impact on RF circuits such as frequency synthesizers are examined. Methods to minimize mixedsignal noise coupling and to model substrate noise effects are presented.     

The Future Generations of Mobile Communications Based on Broadband Access Methods

The forthcoming mobile communication systems are expected to provide much variety of services from high quality voice to high definition videos through high data rate wireless channels at anywhere in the world. High data rate requires broad frequency bands, and sufficient broadband can be achieved in higher frequency bands such as microwave, Ka-band and millimeter-wave. Broadband wireless channels have to be connected to broadband fixed networks such as the Internet and local area networks. The future generation systems will include not only cellular phones, but also many new types of communication systems such as broadband wireless access systems, millimeter-wave LAN, intelligent transport systems (ITS) and high altitude stratospheric platform station (HAPS) systems. The key words in the future generations of mobile communications are multimedia communications, wireless access to broadband fixed networks and seamless roaming among different systems. This article discusses the future generations mobile communication systems.     

Comparative analysis of wireless ATM channel access protocols supporting multimedia traffic

Extension of multimedia services and applications offered by ATM networks to wireless and mobile users has captured a lot of recent research attention. Research prototyping of wireless ATM networks is currently underway at many leading research and academic institutions. Various architectures have been proposed depending on the intended application domain. Successful implementation of wireless connectivity to ATM services is significantly dependent on the medium access control (MAC) protocol, which has to provide support for multimedia traffic and for qualityofservice (QoS) guarantees. The objective of this paper is to investigate the comparative performance of a set of access protocols, proposed earlier in the literature, with more realistic source traffic models. Data traffic is modeled with selfsimilar (fractal) behavior. Voice traffic is modeled by a slow speech activity detector (SAD). Video traffic is modeled as a H.261 video teleconference, where the number of ATM cells per video frame is described by a gamma distribution and a firstorder discrete autoregressive process model. A comparison of the protocols based on simulation data is presented. The goal of the paper is to identify appropriate techniques for effectively and efficiently supporting multimedia traffic and QoS. Simulation results show that boundaries between different types of services are necessary for multimedia traffic. Reservation for certain traffic type especially video can significantly improve its quality. Reducing the number of collisions is an important issue for wireless networks since contentions lead not only to potentially high delay but also result in high power consumption.     

Low power scalable encryption for wireless systems

Secure transmission of multimedia information (e.g., voice, video, data, etc.) is critical in many wireless network applications. Wireless transmission imposes constraints not found in typical wired systems such as low power consumption, tolerance to high bit error rates, and scalability. A variety of low power techniques have been developed to reduce the power of several encryption algorithms. One key idea involves exploiting the variation in computation requirements to dynamically vary the power supply voltage. Application of low power techniques to a wireless camera application yield more than an order of magnitude reduction in power consumption over conventional design methods. Test circuits for five algorithms have been fabricated in a 0.6 m process and the resulting power consumption of each is presented. In addition, a low power hybrid system that combines a powerefficient keystream generator with a secure pseudorandom seed generator is proposed that provides 1 Mbps data encryption at a total estimated power consumption of 150 W.     

On the Capacity of IEEE 802.11 DCF with Capture in Multipath-Faded Channels

In this paper, we estimated the influence of capture effect over the capacity of IEEE 802.11b DCF within a single picocell. The channel utilization is examined analytically by introducing two capture models based on Rayleigh-distributed envelopes of the captured and the interfering frames divided into two local-mean power classes. Simulations in a pure Rician-faded channel depict the conditions under which both Rayleigh-faded capture models can be used to accurately predict the peak network capacity. Unlike the RTS/CTS handshake access mode, Basic access mode is significantly sensitive to the capture ratio, i.e., the receiver design. The packet size threshold over which it is convenient to switch from Basic to RTS/CTS handshake access scheme is also sensitive to the capture effect.     

Scheduling and bandwidth allocation for the distribution of archived video in VOD systems

Providing costeffective videoondemand (VOD) services necessitates reducing the required bandwidth for transporting video over highspeed networks. In this paper, we investigate efficient schemes for transporting archived MPEGcoded video over a VOD distribution network. A video stream is characterized by a timevarying traffic envelope, which provides an upper bound on the bit rate. Using such envelopes, we show that video streams can be scheduled for transmission over the network such that the perstream allocated bandwidth is significantly less than the source peak rate. In a previous work [13], we investigated stream scheduling and bandwidth allocation using global traffic envelopes and homogeneous streams. In this paper, we generalize the scheduling scheme in [13] to include the heterogeneous case. We then investigate the allocation problem under windowbased traffic envelopes, which provide tight bounds on the bit rate. Using such envelopes, we introduce three streamscheduling schemes for multiplexing video connections at a server. The performance of these schemes is evaluated under static and dynamic scenarios. Our results indicate a significant reduction in the perstream allocated bandwidth when stream scheduling is used. While this reduction is obtained through statistical multiplexing, the transported streams are guaranteed stringent, deterministic quality of service (i.e., zero loss rate and small, bounded delay). In contrast to video smoothing, our approach requires virtually no buffer at the settop box since frames are delivered at their playback rate.     

Mobile wireless network system simulation

This paper describes an advanced simulation environment which is used to examine, validate, and predict the performance of mobile wireless network systems. This simulation environment overcomes many of the limitations found with analytical models, experimentation, and other commercial network simulators available on the market today. We identify a set of components which make up mobile wireless systems and describe a set of flexible modules which can be used to model the various components and their integration. These models are developed using the Maisie simulation language. By modeling the various components and their integration, this simulation environment is able to accurately predict the performance bottlenecks of a multimedia wireless network system being developed at UCLA, determine the trade-off point between the various bottlenecks, and provide performance measurements and validation of algorithms which are not possible through experimentation and too complex for analysis.This work was supported in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA/CSTO, under Contract J-FBI-93-112 Computer Aided Design of High Performance Wireless Networked Systems, and by ARPA/CSTO under Contract DABT-63-94-C-0080 TransparentVirtual Mobile Environment.This paper was in part presented at the ACM Mobile Computing and Networking Conference (Mobicom '95), Berkeley, California, 14–15 November 1995.     

Assigning codes in wireless networks: bounds and scaling properties

In the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) framework, collisions that can occur in wireless networks are eliminated by assigning orthogonal codes to stations, a problem equivalent to that of coloring graphs associated to the physical network. In this paper we present new upper and lower bounds for two versions of the problem (hidden and primary collision avoidance – HPCA – or hidden collision avoidance only – HCA). In particular, optimal assignments for special topologies and heuristics for general topologies are proposed. The schemes show better average results with respect to existing alternatives. Furthermore, the gaps between the upper bound given by the heuristic solution, the lower bound obtained from the maximumclique problem, and the optimal solution obtained by branch and bound are investigated in the different settings. A scaling law is then proposed to explain the relations between the number of codes needed in Euclidean networks with different station densities and connection distances. The substantial difference between the two versions HPCA and HCA of the problem is investigated by studying the probabilistic distribution of connections as a function of the distance, and the asymptotic size of the maximum cliques.     

Transport and control issues in multimedia wireless networks

It is not an easy task in the UMTS environment to effectively design the transport and the management of traffic belonging to multimedia teleservices among those defined by ITU Recommendations, due to the hard communication requirements which this kind of application can call for. In this paper the results of an overall research work, dealing with an effective management of multimedia and multi-requirement services in enhanced third-generation mobile radio systems, are presented. The contemporary use of several bearers, one for each traffic component of the service, is proposed as a reference scenario for the transport of multimedia services in future mobile radio environments. The effectiveness of this choice is guaranteed by providing for innovative control techniques, on top of a PRMA-based access protocol, ad-hoc developed to recognise and jointly manage the different parts of a unique multimedia traffic. For this aim, a two-level priority (static and dynamic priorities) mechanism is proposed to be adopted by the higher protocol levels of UMTS for the adptation of call set-up, channel access, handover, and admission control procedures to the nature of multimedia services and for optimising the sharing of radio channel resources and the management of the reservation buffer. Achieved results demonstrate that the priority-based mechanism shows good performance especially during periods in which the system traffic load is high and well reacts to the worsening of multimedia service quality, both in terms of information loss and synchronisation of its different traffic components.     

Floor acquisition multiple access (FAMA) in single‐channel wireless networks

The FAMANCS protocol is introduced for wireless LANs and adhoc networks that are based on a single channel and asynchronous transmissions (i.e., no time slotting). FAMANCS (for floor acquisition multiple access with nonpersistent carrier sensing) guarantees that a single sender is able to send data packets free of collisions to a given receiver at any given time. FAMANCS is based on a threeway handshake between sender and receiver in which the sender uses nonpersistent carrier sensing to transmit a requesttosend (RTS) and the receiver sends a cleartosend (CTS) that lasts much longer than the RTS to serve as a busy tone that forces all hidden nodes to back off long enough to allow a collisionfree data packet to arrive at the receiver. It is shown that carrier sensing is needed to support collisionfree transmissions in the presence of hidden terminals when nodes transmit RTSs asynchronously. The throughput of FAMANCS is analyzed for singlechannel networks with and without hidden terminals; the analysis shows that FAMANCS performs better than ALOHA, CSMA, and all prior proposals based on collision avoidance dialogues (e.g., MACA, MACAW, and IEEE 802.11 DFWMAC) in the presence of hidden terminals. Simulation experiments are used to confirm the analytical results.     

Performance Analysis of Bidding Policy for Competitive Network Providers

This paper proposes an optimum bidding policy in a competitive network provider's environment, where each network provider can bid for individual connection requests according to its own criteria. The proposed bidding policy is based on the concept of shadow price. In other words, each network provider bids only for connection requests with an expected profit exceeding its shadow price. Because such connection request brings profit in the long term, each network provider can maximize its long-term profit by adopting this bidding policy. In this paper, the optimum bidding policy for network providers is analyzed by means of the policy iteration method derived from the Markov decision theory. The economic efficiency of the bidding policy is evaluated using several numerical examples, in which each network provider adopts fixed pricing and state-dependent pricing, respectively. By adopting the bidding policy in both cases, each network provider can maximize its long-term profit while the total users' consumer surplus is slightly reduced.     

An efficient demand-assignment multiple access protocol for wireless packet (ATM) networks

In a wireless packet (ATM) network that supports an integrated mix of multimedia traffic, the channel access protocol needs to be designed such that mobiles share the limited communications bandwidth in an efficient manner: maximizing the utilization of the frequency spectrum and minimizing the delay experienced by mobiles. In this paper, we propose and study an efficient demand-assignment channel access protocol, which we call Distributed-Queueing Request Update Multiple Access (DQRUMA). The protocol can be used for a wide range of applications and geographic distances. Mobiles need to send requests to the base station only for packets that arrive to an empty buffer. For packets that arrive to a non-empty buffer, transmission requests are placed collision-free by piggybacking the requests with packet transmissions. The simulation results show that even with the worst possible traffic characteristics, the delay-throughput performance of DQRUMA is close to the best possible with any access protocol. In addition, explicit slot-by-slot announcement of the transmit permissions gives the base station complete control over the order in which mobiles transmit their packets. This important feature helps the base station satisfy diverse Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements in a wireless ATM network.     

Routing with multiple QoS requirements for supporting multimedia applications

Distributed multimedia applications usually require multiple QoS performance guarantees. However, in general, searching such a route in the network, to support multimedia applications, is known to be NPcomplete. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic QoS routing algorithm, called QoSR_DKS, for supporting multimedia applications in highspeed networks. QoSR_DKS is a modification of rulebased Fallback routing and Dijkstra algorithms. It can search a unicast route that would have enough network resources so that multiple QoS requirements (bandwidth, delay, and delay jitter) of the requested flow could be guaranteed. Its worst case computation time complexity is the same as that of the Dijkstra algorithm, i.e., O(V²), where V is the number of nodes in the network. Extensive simulations were done with various network sizes, upto 500 nodes networks, where each node uses Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ) service discipline. Results show that QoSR_DKS is very efficient. It could always find the QoS satisfying route, whenever there exists one (success rate is optimal), and its average computation time is near to simple shortest path Dijkstra algorithm.     

2-D harmonic retrieval using higher-order statistics

We consider the problem of estimating the harmonics of a noisy 2-D signal. The observed data is modeled as a 2-D sinusoidal signal, with either random or deterministic phases, plus additive Gaussian noise ofunknown covariance. Our method utilizes recently defined higher-order statistics, referred to as mixed-cumulants, which permit a formulation that is applicable to both the random and deterministic case. In particular, we first estimate the frequencies in each dimension using an overdetermined Yule-Walker type approach. Then, the 1-D frequencies are paired using a matching criterion. To support our theory, we examine the performance of the proposed method via simulations.