基于PCF的无线局域网接入时延可控系统研究

目前无线局域网(WLAN)中使用最广的是IEEE 802.11协议,该协议定义了两种信道访问机制:分布式协调功能(DCF)和点协调功能(PCF).其中,DCF采用基于竞争的信道访问机制,因此,多个连有传感器的站点采集数据在信道中传输就会出现碰撞和时延不可控的问题;而PCF采用轮询的方式来提供一种非竞争的访问机制,很好地解决时延不可控制的问题.针对这种情况,提出采用集中控制协议完成PCF访问机制,协议中定义超帧结构并将超帧划分为多个时隙,以此实现无竞争的信道访问机制.实验结果表明:整个网络中传感器采集数据最大接入时延控制在90 ms以内.     

基于忙音多址的多信道无线Mesh网的MAC协议

无线Mesh网（WMN）是一种新型宽带无线接入技术,选择适当的MAC子层规范,根据网络业务特征有效地配置信道资源,可以提高Mesh网的无线资源使用效率以及系统传输性能。而现有的无线Mesh网络基本上是采用单信道MAC协议,不能满足日益俱增的用户需求,限制了整个网络的数据传输速率与网络容量。文中基于忙音多址访问的设计思想,结合无线Mesh网络的特点,提出了一种无线Mesh网MAC协议MCBTMA（Multi-Channel Busy Tone Multiple Access）。MCBTMA通过构建多个忙信号控制信道和多个数据信道,在MAC层进行多信道调度,使无线Mesh网络在吞吐量和时延方面性能有显著提高。     

基于忙音多址的多信道无线Mesh网的MAC协议

无线Mesh网(WMN)是一种新犁宽带无线接入技术,选择适当的MAC子层规范,根据网络业务特征有效地配置信道资源,可以提高Mesh网的无线资源使用效率以及系统传输性能.而现有的无线Mesh网络基本上是采用单信道MAC协议,不能满足日益俱增的用户需求,限制了整个网络的数据传输速率与网络容量.文中基于忙音多址访问的设计思想,结合无线Mesh网络的特点,提出了一种无线Mesh网MAC协议MCBTMA(Multi-Channel Busy Tone Multiple Access).MCBTMA通过构建多个忙信号控制信道和多个数据信道,在MAC层进行多信道调度,使无线Mesh网络在吞吐量和时延方面性能有显著提高.     

WMN中基于链路质量的信道分配算法

针对IEEE 802.11多射频多信道无线Mesh网络,提出一种基于链路质量的分布式信道分配算法,通过信道扫描收集所有信道信息,根据链路质量决定工作信道,同时在网络发生变化时对信道进行动态调整。仿真实验结果表明,与常用的集中式信道分配算法相比,该算法更能有效提升网络容量。     

一种新型无线Mesh网络多信道MAC协议

在基于IEEE 802.11s无线Mesh网络中,Mesh网络接入点（MAP）和门户（MPP）在网络负载较重时会出现严重的流量瓶颈。为了保证MAP流量的优先传输,提出了基于节点优先级的新型多信道MAC协议（NPBM-MAC）;为了减少在小规模组网时各BSS间频率干扰,设计了基于地理位置信息和网络负载的频率分配方案（LLBFA）。仿真结果表明,NPBM-MAC协议和LLBFA频率分配方案能够有效解决重负载网络下的MAP/MPP瓶颈问题,最大限度地满足音视频等大业务流的QoS需求。     

多信道无线Mesh网络的实现及其性能分析

通过搭建基于IEEE 802.11b/g协议的无线Mesh网络实验床,测试无线链路的吞吐率和延迟。实验结果表明,无线链路延迟随跳数增加而增加。利用多发射多信道的网络架构,在无线链路各跳间实现并行传输数据,保证了端到端的吞吐率,使网络性能不会因为无线跳数的增加而明显衰减。     

基于均衡算法的协作信道分配策略

IEEE 802.11物理层和MAC具有支持多信道和多速率的能力。在多速率情况下,IEEE 802.11网络产生性能异常问题,低速率链路严重降低了高速率链路的性能,导致系统性能下降。针对该问题,设计了基于均衡算法的协作信道分配(CCA)协议,以解决无线网络中的性能异常问题。CCA的主要思想是通过预估传输时间(ETT)标准和均衡算法来解决信道分配问题。在预估传输时间标准下,CCA通过多信道来分离不同速率链路。通过使用均衡算法,CCA还能增加吞吐量的公平性。仿真结果表明,在无线网状网中,CCA能有效改善网络性能。     

基于节点合作的Ad hoc网多信道MAC协议

针对Ad hoc网络的多信道隐藏终端问题,提出一种基于邻居节点合作通告机制的异步多信道媒介访问控制协议。该协议通过空闲邻居节点向未收到信道协商控制帧的节点发送通告广播帧,从而有效地解决了多信道隐藏终端问题。仿真结果表明,与IEEE 802.11、MMAC协议相比,该协议在提高网络平均吞吐量的同时,还能降低数据包平均延迟。     

一种基于跳变预约的多信道自组网MAC协议

文章提出了一种新的基于跳变预约的AdHoc网络多信道媒体接入协议(NHRMC),它综合了基于ATIM窗口的同步机制和基于等级的信道预约算法,有效地解决了多跳网络环境下隐终端问题。吞吐量性能分析和仿真实验结果表明,与IEEE802.11DCF的RTS/CTS机制相比,在一定假设条件下,网络的性能得到了明显的改善。     

TDMC:长距离无线MESH网络中面向流量比的动态多信道MAC协议

基于IEEE 802.11的长距离无线mesh网络(LDmesh)是一种远距离无线传输技术。目前,在LDmesh中的研究热点是基于TDMA的MAC协议。现有的单信道MAC协议存在链路利用率低的问题,多信道MAC协议缺少一种可行的方案。设计一种分布式的、实时的、面向流量比的动态多信道MAC协议(TDMC)。TDMC以实时流量比作为依据,遵循提出的信道分配规则,使用一种可行的划分区间法动态分配信道。仿真结果表明:TDMC的性能显著优于JazzyMac;中等负载时TDMC性能比静态多信道协议优15%-54%。     

A novel radio resource allocation scheme for IEEE 802.16e multicell networks

In this paper,we propose a new media access control (MAC) protocol,which is compatible with the IEEE 802.16e-2005 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) wireless interface.In this protocol,the same radio resource can be shared by neighboring cells in the wireless mesh network (WMN) and collisions can be reduced in the overlapping areas.This protocol consists of two schemes: a downlink transmission and an uplink transmission.For downlink transmission we use a cross layer adaptive radio resourc...     

Association management for data dissemination over wireless mesh networks

To enable multimedia broadcasting services in mesh networks, it is critical to optimize the broadcast traffic load. Traditionally, users associate with access points (APs) with the strongest signal strength. We explore the concept of dual-association, where the AP for unicast traffic and the AP for broadcast traffic are independently chosen by exploiting overlapping coverages that are typical in mesh networks. The goal of our proposed solution is to optimize the overall network load by exploiting the flexibility provided by independent selection of unicast and broadcast APs. We propose a novel cost metric based on ETT (Expected Transmission Time) and the number of nodes in range of the APs, that are advertised in the beacons from the APs. Users periodically scan and associate with the AP which has the lowest cost metric. The proposed approach reduces the number of APs that handle the broadcast traffic resulting in a heavy reduction in control and data packet overhead. This leads to higher packet delivery rate and enhanced video quality measured in terms of PSNR. Our approach allows the freed up resources at APs to increase the unicast throughput. We compare the performance of our approach with traditional signal strength based association using extensive simulations and real experiments on an indoor testbed of 180 IEEE 802.11b based devices.     

Route Maintenance in IEEE 802.11 wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we propose a novel Route Maintenance scheme for IEEE 802.11 wireless mesh networks. Despite lack of mobility and energy constraints, reactive routing protocols such as AODV and DSR suffer from frequent route breakages in 802.11 based infrastructure wireless mesh networks. In these networks, if any intermediate node fails to successfully transmit a packet to the next hop node after a certain number of retransmissions, the link layer reports a transmission problem to the network layer. Reactive routing protocols systematically consider this as a link breakage (and therefore a route breakage). Transmission failures can be caused by a number of factors e.g. interference or noise and can be transient in nature. Frequent route breakages result in significant performance degradation. The proposed mechanism considers multiple factors to differentiate between links with transient transmission problems from those links which have permanent transmission problems and takes a coherent decision on link breakage. The proposed mechanism is implemented in AODV for single-radio single-channel mesh network and an extension is incorporated in multi-radio multi-channel scenarios. Simulation results show substantial performance improvement compared to classical AODV and local route repair schemes.     

Dynamic adaptation of CSMA/CA MAC protocol for wide area wireless mesh networks

Though the popular IEEE 802.11 DCF is designed primarily for Wireless LAN (WLAN) environments, today it is being widely used for wide area wireless mesh networking. The protocol parameters of IEEE 802.11 such as timeout values, interframe spaces, and slot durations, sufficient for a general WLAN environment, need to be modified in order to efficiently operate in wide area wireless mesh networks. The current wide area wireless mesh network deployments use manual configuration of these parameters to the upper limit which essentially makes the networks operate at lower system efficiency. In this paper, we propose d802.11 (dynamic 802.11) which dynamically adapts the protocol parameters in order to operate at varying link distances. In fact, in 802.11, a transmitter can face ACK/CTS timeout even when it started receiving ACK/CTS packet before the timeout value. We present three strategies, (i) multiplicative timer backoff (MTB), (ii) additive timer backoff (ATB), and (iii) link RTT memoization (LRM), to adapt the ACK_TIMEOUT in d802.11 in order to provide better adaptation for varying link dimensions. Through extensive simulation experiments we observed significant performance improvement for the proposed strategies. We also theoretically modeled the maximum link throughput as a function of the link dimension for the proposed system. Our results show that the LRM technique provides the best adaptation compared to all other schemes.     

Fast Directional Handoff and lightweight retransmission protocol for enhancing multimedia quality in indoor WLANs

More and more mobile devices such as smartphones are being used with IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs (WLANs or Wi-Fi). However, mobile users are still experiencing poor service quality on the move due to the large handoff delay and packet loss problem. In order to reduce the delay, a new handoff scheme using the geomagnetic sensor embedded in mobile devices is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme predicts the movement direction of a Mobile Station (MS) from the currently associated Access Point (AP) and performs active scanning with a reduced number of channels. In terms of the packet loss, a lightweight retransmission protocol is also proposed to minimize lost packets on Wi-Fi without producing a lot of acknowledgement packets. The proposed approaches are implemented on Android smartphones, and their performance is evaluated in a real indoor WLAN environment. The evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed schemes maintain seamless quality for real-time video even in an environment with frequent handoffs. Note that the proposed schemes are a client-only solution and do not require modification of the existing APs, which renders them very practical.     

Evaluating transport protocol performance over a wireless mesh backbone

IEEE 802.11n wireless physical layer technology increases the deployment of high throughput wireless indoor mesh backbones for ubiquitous Internet connectivity at the urban and metropolitan areas. Most of the network traffic flows in today’s Internet use ‘Transmission Control Protocol’ (TCP) as the transport layer protocol. There has been extensive works that deal with TCP issues over wireless mesh networks as well as noisy wireless channels. Further, IEEE 802.11n is well known for its susceptibility to increased channel losses during high data rate communication. This paper investigates the dynamics of an end-to-end transport layer protocol like TCP in the presence of burst and correlated losses during IEEE 802.11n high data rate communication, while maintaining fairness among all the end-to-end flows. For this purpose, we evaluate four TCP variants-Loss Tolerant TCP (LT-TCP), Network Coded TCP (TCP/NC), TCP-Horizon and Wireless Control Protocol (WCP), where the first two protocols are known to perform very well in extreme lossy networks, and the last two are specifically designed for mesh networks. Our evaluation shows that WCP performs better in a IEEE 802.11n supported mesh networks compared to other three variants. However, WCP also results in negative impact at high data rates, where end-to-end goodput drops with the increase in physical data rate. The analysis of the results reveals that explicit loss notifications and flow balancing are not sufficient to improve transport protocol performance in an IEEE 802.11n supported mesh backbone, rather a specific mechanism is required to synchronize the transport queue management with lower layer scheduling that depends on IEEE 802.11n features, like channel bonding and frame aggregation. The findings of this paper give the direction to design a new transport protocol that can utilize the full capacity of IEEE 802.11n mesh backbone.     

Spectrum sharing in IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh networks

With current amendments, transmission rates of 100 Mb/s and more become possible with IEEE 802.11 WLANs. On the one hand, this allows the end user to change from wired to wireless infrastructure in even more application scenarios; on the other hand interference sensitive modes reduce the maximum range between the mobile station and the access point (AP). To extend the transmission range transparently, relay APs form a mesh network and provide wireless connection over large areas.Besides path selection, a crucial capability of a wireless mesh network is the ability to share the available spectrum among the participants. In this work, we classify two inherently different MAC protocols according to this ability. The well-known IEEE 802.11 DCF takes the position of a typical CSMA/CA protocol, whereas the Mesh Network Alliance (MNA) represents a distributed, reservation-based approach.To assess their performance, we follow a dual approach: first we develop a method to compute the capacity bounds of the protocols in the considered scenarios. It helps to estimate the absolute gain of spectrum sharing in wireless mesh networks. Second, the WARP2 simulation engine is used to compare the distributed behaviour of both protocols. This results in a relative evaluation. A final conclusion is drawn by combining the simulation and the theoretical results. It underlines the significant possibilities of the MNA approach and shows future directions for capacity gains.     

Performance model for IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh network deployment design

This paper presents a performance model developed for the deployment design of IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN). The model contains seven metrics to analyze the state of WMN, and novel mechanisms to use multiple evaluation criteria in WMN performance optimization. The model can be used with various optimization algorithms. In this work, two example algorithms for channel assignment and minimizing the number of mesh Access Points (APs) have been developed. A prototype has been implemented with Java, evaluated by optimizing a network topology with different criteria and verified with NS-2 simulations. According to the results, multirate operation, interference aware routing, and the use of multiple evaluation criteria are crucial in WMN deployment design. By channel assignment and removing useless APs, the capacity increase in the presented simulations was between 230% and 470% compared to a single channel configuration. At the same time, the coverage was kept high and the traffic distribution fair among the APs.     

On-Demand Medium Access in Multihop Wireless Networks with Multiple Beam Smart Antennas

The paper presents a detailed discussion of various issues involved in designing a medium access control (MAC) protocol for multihop wireless networks with nodes employing multiple beam smart antennas. Multiple beam smart antennas can form several beams simultaneously and can initiate concurrent transmissions or receptions .in them, thereby increasing the throughput of the bottleneck nodes. Traditional on-demand MAC protocols for omnidirectional and single beam directional antennas based on the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) mechanism cannot take advantage of this unique capability of multiple beam antennas as they do not facilitate concurrent transmissions or receptions by a node. This paper introduces a novel protocol, hybrid MAC (HMAC), which enables concurrent packet reception (CPR) and concurrent packet transmission (CPT) at a node equipped with multiple beam antennas and is backward compatible with IEEE 802.11 DCF. Simulation results show the superior performance of HMAC in most ad hoc scenarios. Moreover, in some sample topologies, the throughput of HMAC is close to the theoretical maximum. The paper also presents a wireless mesh network architecture with heterogeneous antenna technologies and illustrates the advantages of employing multiple beam smart antennas and HMAC in such networks.