On the performance and fairness of dynamic channel allocation in wireless mesh networks

Channel assignment in multichannel multiradio wireless mesh networks is a powerful resource management tool to exploit available multiple channels. Channels can be allocated either statically on the basis of long‐term steady state behavior of traffic or dynamically according to actual traffic demands. It is a common belief that dynamic schemes provide better performance; however, these two broad classes of channel allocation schemes have not been compared in detail. In this paper, we quantify the achievable performance gain and fairness improvement through an optimal dynamic channel allocation scheme. We develop optimal algorithms for a dynamic and three static schemes using mixed integer linear programming and compare them in the context of QoS provisioning, where network performance is measured in terms of acceptance rate of QoS sensitive traffic demands. Our extensive simulations show that static schemes should optimize channel allocation for long‐term traffic pattern and maintain max–min fairness to achieve acceptable performances. Although the dynamic and max–min fair static schemes accomplish the same fairness, the dynamic channel allocation outperforms the static scheme about 10% in most cases. In heavily overloaded regimes, especially when network resources are scarce, both have comparable performances, and the max–min fair scheme is preferred because it incurs less overhead. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal rate allocation and QoS-sensitive admission control in wireless integrated networks

The problem of Call Admission Control and rate allocation in loosely coupled wireless integrated networks is investigated. The related Radio Resource Management schemes were introduced to improve network performance in wireless integrated networks. However, these schemes did not reflect the independence and competitiveness of loosely coupled wireless integrated networks. Furthermore, given that users have different requirements for price and Quality of Service (QoS), they are able to select a network according to their preference. We consider a scenario with two competitive wireless networks, namely Universal Mobile Telecommunications System cellular networks and Wireless Local Area Networks. Users generate two types of traffic with different QoS requirements: real-time and non-real-time. We propose a scheme that exploits a mathematical model for the control of call admission and adopt a noncooperative game theory-based approach to address the rate allocation problem. The purpose is to maximize the revenue of the network providers while guaranteeing a level of QoS according to user needs. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides better network performance with respect to packet loss rate, packet delay time, and call-blocking probability than other schemes when the data rates are allocated to each call at the point that maximizes the revenue of network providers. We further demonstrate that a Nash equilibrium always exists for the considered games.     

Integrated dynamic distributed routing and admission control in ATM networks

A node-by-node admission control and routing scheme for ATM networks is devised. The scheme is based on the subdivision of traffic into a number of classes, characterized by different performance requirements. At each network node, for all outgoing links, link capacity partitions are periodically assigned to the traffic classes, as the result of an optimization problem over a fixed time interval. Local access control rules compute the maximum number of connections of each class that a link can accept within the assigned capacity. Incoming call connection requests are forwarded in a hop-by-hop fashion. Each node traversed, first checks the presence of resources needed to accept a new connection and guarantee all quality of service (QoS) requirements. This is done by using the local access control rule. Then, it chooses the next node along the path on the basis of a distributed routing strategy. This minimizes a cost function accounting for local instantaneous information, as well as for aggregate information that is passed periodically among adjacent nodes. Two routing strategies are introduced. In the first scheme, a new call is rejected if, at a certain node along the path, there are not enough resources to guarantee QoS requirements, and no recovery mechanism is implemented. In the second scheme, an alternative path is looked for after the first failure. Simulation results are presented which show a comparison between the two proposed routing strategies. Comparison is also made between the proposed scheme and the other approaches. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Approximation of performance measures in cellular mobile networks with dynamic channel allocation

This paper considers large cellular mobile networks with dynamic channel allocation in which the arrival rates, holding times and handover probabilities for the different cells are identical. Such networks could model, for example, cellular networks in suburban areas. Different methods of analysing these networks are compared. These methods fall into two basic categories, those which approximate a network with a smaller finite network and those which consider the expected performance of a cell within an environment consisting of cells with identical properties. Simplifications of these methods which arise out of the reversibility of a symmetric cellular network are also discussed.     

Dynamic channel allocation in wireless ATM networks

During the last few years extensive research has been carried out to extend fixed ATM networks to mobile users. Currently the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is standardising new types of Broadband Radio Access Networks (BRAN): HIPERLAN/2 and HIPERACCESS. In cellular systems like HIPERLAN/2 the aspect of channel allocation plays an important role. In this paper two approaches for channel allocation are introduced and compared with each other concerning the spectrum efficiency and their influence on the implementation of wireless ATM networks and wireless LANs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

蜂窝通信网络中的分布式无线信道分配方法

文中提出了一种适用于蜂窝通信网的分布式无线信道分配方法。当网络部署环境中出现干扰后,终端用户通过控制信道,发送反馈信息至基站;基站接收到反馈信息后,对可用信道进行扫频,利用广播帧通知受干扰的终端用户可用信道信息;然后终端用户收到基站发送的广播帧后,根据优先级机制,选择新的信道重新建立与基站的通信,当蜂窝通信网中终端用户受外部干扰而信道中断后,该方法可减少终端用户和基站之间信令的开销。     

Bandwidth allocation in wireless networks with guaranteedpacket-loss performance

Providing quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees over wireless packet networks poses a host of technical challenges that are not present in wireline networks. One of the key issues is how to account for the characteristics of the time-varying wireless channel and for the impact of link-layer error control in the provisioning of packet-level QoS. We accommodate both aspects in analyzing the packet-loss performance over a wireless link. We consider the cases of a single and multiplexed traffic streams. The link capacity fluctuates according to a fluid version of Gilbert-Elliott channel model. Traffic sources are modeled as on-off fluid processes. For the single-stream case, we derive the exact packet-loss rate (PLR) due to buffer overflow at the sender side of the wireless link. We also obtain a closed-form approximation for the corresponding wireless effective bandwidth. In the case of multiplexed streams, we obtain a good approximation for the PLR using the Chernoff-dominant eigenvalue (CDE) approach. Our analysis is then used to study the optimal forward error correction code rate that guarantees a given PLR while minimizing the allocated bandwidth. Numerical results and simulations are used to verify the adequacy of our analysis and to study the impact of error control on the allocation of bandwidth for guaranteed packet-loss performance     

A dynamic call admission policy with precision QoS guarantee usingstochastic control for mobile wireless networks

Call admission control is one of the key elements in ensuring the quality of service in mobile wireless networks. The traditional trunk reservation policy and its numerous variants give preferential treatment to the handoff calls over new arrivals by reserving a number of radio channels exclusively for handoffs. Such schemes, however, cannot adapt to changes in traffic pattern due to the static nature. This paper introduces a novel stable dynamic call admission control mechanism (SDCA), which can maximize the radio channel utilization subject to a predetermined bound on the call dropping probability. The novelties of the proposed mechanism are: (1) it is adaptive to wide range of system parameters and traffic conditions due to its dynamic nature; (2) the control is stable under overloading traffic conditions, thus can effectively deal with sudden traffic surges; (3) the admission policy is stochastic, thus spreading new arrivals evenly over a control period, and resulting in more effective and accurate control; and (4) the model takes into account the effects of limited channel capacity and time dependence on the call dropping probability, and the influences from nearest and next-nearest neighboring cells, which greatly improve the control precision. In addition, we introduce local control algorithms based on strictly local estimations of the needed traffic parameters, without requiring the status information exchange among different cells, which makes it very appealing in actual implementation. Most of the computational complexities lie in off-line precalculations, except for the nonlinear equation of the acceptance ratio, in which a coarse-grain numerical integration is shown to be sufficient for stochastic control. Extensive simulation results show that our scheme steadily satisfies the hard constraint on call dropping probability while maintaining a high channel throughput     

Iterative power control based admission control for wireless networks

This paper studies transmission power control algorithms for cellular networks. One of the challenges in commonly used iterative mechanisms to achieve this is to identify if the iteration will converge since convergence indicates feasibility of transmit power allocation under prevailing network conditions. The convergence criterion should also be simple to calculate given the time constraints in a real-time wireless network. Towards this goal, this paper derives simple sufficient conditions for convergence of an iterative power control algorithm using existing bounds from matrix theory. With the help of suitable numerical examples, it is shown that the allocated transmit powers of the nodes converge when sufficient conditions are satisfied, and diverge when they are not satisfied. This forms the basis for an efficient link data-rate based admission control mechanism for wireless networks. The mechanism considers parameters such as signal strength requirement, link datarate requirement, and number of nodes in the system. Simulation based analysis shows that existing links are able to maintain their desired datarates despite the addition of new wireless links.     

Optimal scheduling for dynamic channel allocation in wireless LANs

Channel allocation schemes that have been used in cellular wireless ave limited applicability to Wireless LANs (WLANs) because of the small number of available channels and irregular cell geometries in WLAN environments. In this paper, we propose a dynamic, frame-based channel allocation architecture for WLANs. In this architecture, time is divided into a sequence of consecutive frames (in the order of milliseconds), and in each frame, only a non-interfering subset of access points (APs) is activated. Under broad traffic assumptions, we prove that the attainable system throughput can be optimized by scheduling APs and allocating channels in each frame such that a weighted sum of queue sizes at the activated APs is maximized. This optimality criterion for AP scheduling and channel allocation leads to a novel graph problem which is a variant of the well-known maximum independent set problem. We develop two heuristics for solving this problem. The first is a greedy heuristic that yields an approximation algorithm that has quadratic time complexity (in the number of APs) and, under certain conditions, yields a constant (6) factor approximation bound. The second heuristic is a graph decomposition heuristic. This heuristic, again under certain conditions, yields better approximation ratio, 1+e,1+\epsilon, but has complexity that grows exponentially with 1/e²1/\epsilon^{2} for arbitrarily small $\epsilon > 0.$\epsilon > 0. Using the ns2 simulator we conducted experiments to compare our frame-based approach to static channel allocation. Results of our simulation indicate that our approach is able to deliver system throughput improvements of more than 50%.     

Call admission control in wireless multimedia networks

Call admission control (CAC) is a mechanism used in networks to administer quality of service (QoS). Whereas the CAC problem in time-division multiple access (TDMA)-based cellular networks is simply related to the number of physical channels available in the network, it is strongly related to the physical layer performance in code-division multiple access (CDMA) networks since the multi-access interference in them is a function of the number of users and is a limiting factor in ensuring QoS. In this article, the CAC issues in multimedia DS-CDMA systems are reviewed by illustrating the basic principles underlying various schemes that have been proposed progressively from the simplest to the complex. The article also introduces SIR as a measure of QoS and describes the relatively simple schemes to administer CAC. The expression for SIR resulting from linear minimum mean-squared error processing is also presented. This article illustrates how CAC for multiple class service can be casted into an optimality framework and then discuss the recent work addressing self-similar multiple access interference.     

Flow admission control for multi-channel multi-radio wireless networks

Providing Quality of Service (QoS) is a major challenge in wireless networks. In this paper we propose a distributed call admission control protocol (DCAC) to do both bandwidth and delay guaranteed call admission for multihop wireless mesh backbone networks, by exploiting the multi-channel multi-radio (mc-mr) feature. We propose a novel routing metric for route setup, and present an efficient distributed algorithm for link reservation that satisfies the required bandwidth and reduces the delay by a local scheduling that minimizes one hop delay. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first distributed protocol that embeds mc-mr feature in Time Division Medium Access (TDMA) to do QoS call admission in wireless backbone networks. Extensive simulation studies show that our protocol significantly improves network performance on supporting QoS sessions compared with some widely used protocols.     

Edge distributed admission control in MPLS networks

This paper proposes a novel approach for admission control in traffic engineered data networks, which applies at network edges by means of dynamic thresholds evaluated on the basis of network status. The proposed method is described with focus on IP/MPLS networks, but it actually applies as well to a variety of scenarios, such as ATM or generalized MPLS. The proposed solution allows more efficient usage of network resources, especially at medium/high load, and increased robustness of the network.     

无线/移动网络中自适应的接纳控制算法及性能分析

无线／移动网络中重要的连接级QoS性能指标包括新连接请求阻塞率(CBP)、切换连接请求丢弃率(HDP)等。其中，更不希望因切换连接请求的丢弃而导致服务的终止。为降低HDP，通常采用资源预留方案。但这种方案导致CBP较高、资源利用率低。本文针对自适应的多媒体应用带宽可以动态调整的特点，研究无线／移动网络中多优先级服务自适应的接纳控制机制，提出一个自适应的接纳控制算法，对其QoS性能进行分析。     

Evaluation of channel dependent bandwidth allocation in wireless access networks: centralized and distributed approach

The problem of bandwidth allocation in wireless access networks is studied in this paper, investigating the performance of two approaches. Firstly, we use centralized algorithms, such as bankruptcy division rules and Nash bargaining. Secondly, a distributed algorithm is proposed in order to find the optimal solution of the bandwidth allocation problem. In both approaches, the allocation rules are properly modified to incorporate the influence of the channel state resulting in a more efficient and fair bandwidth allocation. The channel dependent centralized and distributed schemes are compared in terms of efficiency and fairness with a view to highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of every approach.     

A hybrid channel allocation method for wireless communication networks

In this paper a new hybrid channel allocation method is presented, which focuses on both nominal and dynamic channel allocation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Task allocation and scheduling in wireless distributed computing networks

Wireless distributed computing (WDC) is an enabling technology that allows radio nodes to cooperate in processing complex computational tasks of an application in a distributed manner. WDC research is being driven by the fact that mobile portable computing devices have limitations in executing complex mobile applications, mainly attributed to their limited resource and functionality. This article focuses on resource allocation in WDC networks, specifically on scheduling and task allocation. In WDC, it is important to schedule communications between the nodes in addition to the allocation of computational tasks to nodes. Communication scheduling and heterogeneity in the operating environment make the WDC resource allocation problem challenging to address. This article presents a task allocation and scheduling algorithm that optimizes both energy consumption and makespan in a heuristic manner. The proposed algorithm uses a comprehensive model of the energy consumption for the execution of tasks and communication between tasks assigned to different radio nodes. The algorithm is tested for three objectives, namely, minimization of makespan, minimization of energy consumption, and minimization of both makespan and energy consumption.     

Reuse partitioning in cellular networks with dynamic channel allocation

Great interest in recent years has been devoted to mobile communications. The research effort has been directed to increasing the capacity of radio systems by applying space reuse techniques. Higher efficiency in the usage of the available frequency spectrum can be obtained either by reducing the cell size, thus requiring the provision of new base stations, or by reusing the available spectrum more efficiently without cell size reduction. In this paper we present a dynamic frequency allocation algorithm for cellular networks that exploits a given reuse pattern. The performance of the proposed scheme, in terms of blocking probability, is evaluated by means of computer simulations both when the position of the mobiles remains unchanged and when mobility is taken into account, under both uniform and hotspot traffic. The numerical results show that the capacity of the proposed scheme is sensibly higher than that of a dynamic channel allocation without reuse partitioning. The effects of both user mobility and reuse partitioning on the signalling load are also considered.