BRAM: The Broadcast Recognizing Access Method

In this paper, we first present the broadcast recognizing access method (BRAM), an access protocol suitable for regulating internode communication in either a radio or (coaxial or fiber) cable based communication system. The method avoids collisions, imposes negligible computational requirements on the nodes attempting to transmit, and is fair in the sense that no node will be indefinitely prevented from transmitting. Next we introduce parametric BRAM which attempts to balance the length of inserted channel idle periods, resulting from scheduling effects, against the probability of allowed message collisions. We show that parametric BRAM can be used to realize a method which balances inserted channel idle time against the probability of message collision to yield enhanced performance. For high message loads, parametric BRAM converges to BRAM, while for low and medium loadings it yields throughputs in excess of BRAM, and other methods. Both BRAM and parametric BRAM are discussed under the assumption of homogeneous message arrival rates at the nodes. We conclude by showing how the parametric BRAM can be applied when the nodes operate with heterogeneous or mixed message arrival rates.     

Modeling Queueing and Channel Access Delay in Unsaturated IEEE 802.11 Random Access MAC Based Wireless Networks

In this paper, we present an analytic model for evaluating the queueing delays and channel access times at nodes in wireless networks using the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) as the MAC protocol. The model can account for arbitrary arrival patterns, packet size distributions and number of nodes. Our model gives closed form expressions for obtaining the delay and queue length characteristics and models each node as a discrete time $G/G/1$ queue. The service time distribution for the queues is derived by accounting for a number of factors including the channel access delay due to the shared medium, impact of packet collisions, the resulting backoffs as well as the packet size distribution. The model is also extended for ongoing proposals under consideration for 802.11e wherein a number of packets may be transmitted in a burst once the channel is accessed. Our analytical results are verified through extensive simulations. The results of our model can also be used for providing probabilistic quality of service guarantees and determining the number of nodes that can be accommodated while satisfying a given delay constraint.      

Expressions for the mean transfer delay of generalized M-stage hybrid ARQ protocols

In this paper, we develop expressions for the transfer delay of an M-stage hybrid automatic repeat-request (HARQ) protocol. These generally applicable expressions make no assumptions about the quality of the feedback channel and explicitly account for both feedback errors and their associated delays. Both infinitely repeating and terminated HARQ protocols are considered. Through a series of examples, we demonstrate that these expressions admit earlier results as special cases or applications, while providing additional insight on the contributions of various error and delay terms.     

MBRAM-a priority protocol for PC based local area networks

A protocol called modified broadcast access method (MBRAM) is presented that is based on the broadcast recognizing access method (BRAM). The goal was to develop a protocol that would support large file transfers from priority nodes (such as image workstations) and still provide reasonable access for nonpriority nodes for normal traffic, using standard Ethernet hardware. Initial results and future-simulation and experiments on a prototype testbed are reported, showing that MBRAM meets the requirements     

On Broadcasting in Radio Networks--Problem Analysis and Protocol Design

In this paper we develop a graph-oriented model for dealing with broadcasting in radio networks. Using this model, optimality in broadcasting protocols is defined, and it is shown that the problem of finding an optimal protocol is NP-hard. A polynomial time algorithm is proposed under which a channel is assigned to nodes from global, multiple-source broadcasting considerations. In particular, nodes participating in the broadcast do not interfere with each other's transmissions, but otherwise simultaneous channel reuse is permitted. Protocol implementations of this approach by frequency division and by time division are given. It is shown that, using these protocols, bounded delay for broadcasted messages can be guaranteed.     

RIPT: A Receiver-Initiated Reservation-Based Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Networks

Although there are many MAC protocols that have been proposed for terrestrial wireless networks with a wide variety of aspects, these protocols cannot be applied directly in underwater acoustic networks due to the channel's uniqueness of having low data rate and long propagation delay. In order to achieve a high throughput, both characteristics must be taken into account in the MAC design. We propose a random access MAC protocol for multi-hop underwater acoustic networks based on receiver reservation, which we shall call the "Receiverinitiated Packet Train" (RIPT) protocol. It is a handshakingbased protocol that addresses the channel?s long propagation delay characteristic by utilizing receiver-initiated reservations, as well as by coordinating packets from multiple neighboring nodes to arrive in a packet train manner at the receiver. Our simulation results have confirmed that the RIPT protocol can achieve our goal of having high and stable throughput performance while maintaining low collision rate.     

A hybrid reservation-based MAC protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks

Due to the characteristics of underwater acoustic channel, such as long propagation delay and low available bandwidth, media access control (MAC) protocol designed for the underwater acoustic sensor network (UWASN) is quite different from that for the terrestrial wireless sensor network. However, for the contention-based MAC protocols, the packet transmission time is long because of the long preamble in real acoustic modems, which increase the packet collisions. And the competition phase lasts for long time when many nodes are competing for the channel to access. For the schedule-based MAC protocols, the delay is too long, especially in a UWASN with low traffic load. In order to resolve these problems, a hybrid reservation-based MAC (HRMAC) protocol is proposed for UWASNs in this paper. In the proposed HRMAC protocol, the nodes reserve the channel by declaring and spectrum spreading technology is used to reduce the collision of the control packets. Many nodes with data packets to be transmitted can reserve the channel simultaneously, and nodes with reserved channel transmit their data in a given order. The performance analysis shows that the proposed HRMAC protocol can improve the channel efficiency greatly. Simulation results also show that the proposed HRMAC protocol achieves better performance, namely higher network throughput, lower packet drop ratio, smaller end-to-end delay, less overhead of control packets and lower energy overhead, compared to existing typical MAC protocols for the UWASNs.     

最小化长传播时延对无线网络多址接入协议的影响(英文)

A multiple access protocol is proposed to greatly improve multiple access performance of wireless networks with long propagation delay. All the nodes with packets to send can make rapid successful reservation in access reservation mini-slots, which is adaptively adjusted according to current traffic load and idle channel resources. A Central Control Node (CCN) coordinates channel reservation and allocates on-demand channel resources to the successfully accessed nodes on two channels. Each node can employ on...     

Performance Analysis of Network Coding Based Two-Way Relay Wireless Networks Deploying IEEE 802.11

In this paper, we investigate the performance analysis of the IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol at the data link layer. We analyze the impact of network coding in saturated and non-saturated traffic conditions. The cross-layer analytical framework is presented in analyzing the performance of the encode-and-forward (EF) relaying wireless networks. This situation is employed at the physical layer under the conditions of non-saturated traffic and finite-length queue at the data link layer. First, a model of a two-hop EF relaying wireless channel is proposed as an equivalent extend multi-dimensional Markovian state transition model in queuing analysis. Then, the performance in terms of queuing delay, throughput and packet loss rate are derived. We provide closed-form expressions for the delay and throughput of two-hop unbalanced bidirectional traffic cases both with and without network coding. We consider the buffers on nodes are unsaturated. The analytical results are mainly derived by solving queuing systems for the buffer behavior at the relay node. To overcome the hidden node problem in multi hop wireless networks, we develop a useful mathematical model. Both models have been evaluated through simulations and simulation results show good agreement with the analytical results.     

Reservation CSMA/CD: a multiple access protocol for LAN's

A multiple-access protocol for local area networks is described. It is basically a hybrid of carrier-sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) and the broadcast recognizing access method (BRAM). CSMA/CD, which is contention-based, works well under light traffic, but message collisions degrade system performance when the channel becomes heavily loaded. BRAM, which is collision-free, has no longer delays at low load, but its efficiency improves as the load increases. Performance models are developed for the hybrid protocol and for the Ethernet protocol, a proven commercial implementation of CSMA/CD-type protocols. It is found that the hybrid protocol gives better performance for a wide range of scenarios     

Spatial TDMA: A Collision-Free Multihop Channel Access Protocol

In this paper we define a broadcast channel access protocol called spatial TDMA, which is designed specifically to operate in a multihop packet radio environment where the location of the nodes of the network is assumed to be fixed. The defined protocol assigns transmission rights to nodes in the network in a local TDMA fashion and is collisionfree. Methods for determining slot allocations are developed, and an approximate solution is given for determining the assignment of capacities for the links of the network that minimizes the average delay of messages in the system.     

Pilot-Based LMMSE Channel Estimation for OFDM Systems With Power–Delay Profile Approximation

In linear-minimum-mean-square-error (LMMSE) channel estimation for multicarrier systems, one needs to know the channel correlation function. This poses a problem for systems with a small number of pilots operating in time-varying channels. We propose to approximate the channel power–delay profile (PDP) with a shape that can completely be described in two parameters, namely, the mean delay and the root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread. Furthermore, we develop a simple technique to estimate these delay parameters. The approximate PDP is then used to generate the LMMSE filter coefficients for data-subcarrier channel estimation. Mathematical expressions are derived that can be used to predict the accuracy of the various estimates, and they are verified by simulation. The proposed technique is applicable to both point-to-point communication and multiaccess communication where different users may experience different channel conditions. As a practical application, we also specialize the proposed technique to Mobile WiMAX signals and investigate the resulting performance.      

Hopping control channel MAC protocol for opportunistic spectrum access networks

Opportunistic spectrum access （OSA） is considered as a promising approach to mitigate spectrum scarcity by allowing unlicensed users to exploit spectrum opportunities in licensed frequency bands. Derived from the existing channel-hopping multiple access （CHMA） protocol,we introduce a hopping control channel medium access control （MAC） protocol in the context of OSA networks. In our proposed protocol,all nodes in the network follow a common channel-hopping sequence; every frequency channel can be used as control channel and data channel. Considering primary users＇ occupancy of the channel,we use a primary user （PU） detection model to calculate the channel availability for unlicensed users＇ access. Then,a discrete Markov chain analytical model is applied to describe the channel states and deduce the system throughput. Through simulation,we present numerical results to demonstrate the throughput performance of our protocol and thus validate our work.     

Closed‐form expressions for the average channel capacity of the α– μ fading model under different adaptive transmission protocols

In this paper,we consider a small‐scale multipath fading channel following the α– μ generalized fading model distribution.We first derive an expression for the amount of fading () for this channel model to show the generalization attribute of this fading model recently reported in the literature. Then, we derive closed‐form expressions for the average channel capacity considering this channel distribution under different adaptive transmission protocols, namely the simultaneous power and rate adaptation protocol, the optimal rate adaptation with fixed power protocol, and the channel inversion with fixed‐rate protocol. All the obtained expressions are in closed‐form and general expressions that can reduce to other channel capacity expressions that are well‐known and to some others that are not known for Rayleigh, Nakagami‐m, and Weibull, as special cases. The derived expressions in this paper are new and have not been previously reported in the literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

移动Ad Hoc网络中一种分布式QoS保证的多址接入协议

基于随机竞争和冲突解决的思想,本文为多跳移动Ad Hoc网络提出了一种分布式服务质量(QoS)保证的多址接入(QMA)协议.该协议中,节点在发送业务分组前利用预报突发进行竞争接入,节点根据业务分组时延情况和最早失效优先原则确定预报突发的长度,所发预报突发能持续到最后的节点优先获得接入.同时,具有实时业务的节点可以按照其优先级在更早的竞争微时隙中开始发送预报突发,而有非实时业务的节点只能在前面竞争微时隙空闲的情况下,才能在后面的微时隙开始发送预报突发,因此发送实时业务的节点可以比发送非实时业务的节点更优先接入信道,从而在移动Ad Hoc网络中实现了对多媒体业务的QoS保证.最后利用OPNET仿真评估了QMA协议的多址性能,并与IEEE 802.11e协议的性能做了比较,结果表明QMA协议可以提供较高的吞吐量和较低的实时业务时延.     

一种利用信道侦听的动态TDMA协议

针对TDMA网络节点间业务量不均匀时,会造成信道资源严重浪费的情况,提出了一种利用信道侦听的CS-TDMA协议。该协议在TDMA协议的基础上,节点通过接收到各节点的数据包数量估算相应节点的业务量大小。当某节点时隙剩余时,向其统计中业务量最大的一个节点发送ATS信息,通知该节点占用剩余时隙发送数据,直至时隙结束。仿真结果表明,CS-TDMA协议较TDMA协议在传输时延、吞吐量、数据接收率上均有所提高,尤其在节点间业务量大小不均匀时,时延性能提升更加明显。     

一种高效低时延的宽带电力线通信网多跳MAC协议

针对IEEE1901.1宽带电力线通信媒体接入控制(Medium Access Control,MAC)协议涉及到信标时隙利用不充分和控制开销过大等问题,提出了一种高效低时延的宽带电力线通信网多跳MAC协议(Efficient and Low Delay Multi-hop MAC,ELDM-MAC).采用基于节点层级号的信标时隙分配机制,根据邻居表和时隙分配信息计算能够提前进入到载波监听多路访问时隙(Carrier Sense Multiple Access,CSMA)的时间,减少了信标时隙的浪费,提高了信道利用率;同时采用基于拓扑信息的信标帧高效广播机制,删除不大于自身层级号的节点和大于且在两跳范围内的非子孙节点的时隙分配信息,降低了网络控制开销.仿真结果表明,ELDM-MAC协议在信道利用率、平均时延和控制开销等方面都优于IEEE1901.1 MAC协议,更适用于宽带电力线通信网络的实际应用场景.     

A hybrid multi-channel MAC protocol for wireless ad hoc networks

In a regular wireless ad hoc network, the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol coordinates channel access among nodes, and the throughput of the network is limited by the bandwidth of a single channel. The multi-channel MAC protocols can exploit multiple channels to achieve high network throughput by enabling more concurrent transmissions. In this paper, we propose a hybrid and adaptive protocol, called H-MMAC, which utilizes multi-channel resources more efficiently than other multi-channel MAC protocols. The main idea is to adopt the IEEE 802.11 Power Saving Mechanism and to allow nodes to transmit data packets while other nodes try to negotiate the data channel during the Ad hoc Traffic Indication Message window based on the network traffic load. The analytical and simulation results show that the proposed H-MMAC protocol improves the network performance significantly in terms of the aggregate throughput, average delay, fairness and energy efficiency.     

Provision of continuous VCR functions in interactive broadcast VoD systems

Video broadcasting is one of the feasible solutions to implement a large-scale video-on-demand (VoD) system. Nevertheless, it is still an open issue for the provision of continuous VCR functions in a delay insensitive broadcast VoD system. In this paper, we propose to jointly optimize an active buffer management scheme with contingency channels to support the VCR functions in an efficient protocol called partitioned broadcasting. We develop a greedy channel management scheme by exploiting the property of the broadcasting protocol such that the system bandwidth capacity can be fully utilized. Incorporating the channel management scheme with the partitioned video broadcast, the VoD system not only provides delay insensitive services but also handles all the interactive requests. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the partitioned broadcasting system outperforms the traditional system based on the staggered broadcasting protocols. It is found that 20 broadcasting channels and 10 contingency channels are sufficient to support on average 720 customers for a single video with less that one second start-up delay and all types of VCR functions.     

Ratio-based time synchronization protocol in wireless sensor networks

Time synchronization plays a key role in the wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Time synchronization is realized by those messages that are time-stamped. But there are several delay times during transmission after time stamping. Most of them are uncertain and contribute directly to synchronization error. The uncertainties include send time, channel access time, transmission time, and receive time. In addition to the uncertainties, clock drift is also a main source of time synchronization error. In this paper, we present a time synchronization protocol that can be applied in the multi-hop WSNs. The proposed protocol estimates the clock drift between two nodes to keep them synchronized for duration after once synchronizing. It uses lower communication overhead and establishes more robust synchronization situations for all nodes in the network. By periodical re-synchronization, the un-synchronization conditions such as nodes failures or topology change can be easily overcome. We implement our protocol in the Berkeley MICAz platform. The experimenting scenarios are 5-node and 18-node multi-hop topologies, and the re-synchronization periods are 30-second and 300-second. The experiment results show that the average synchronization errors of all nodes run with our protocol are ranged within several micro-seconds which are better than the previous protocol.