A Distributed Cooperative MAC Protocol for QoS Improvement and Mobility Support in WiMedia Networks

A Distributed Medium Access Control (D-MAC) protocol based on UWB for high-rate Wireless Personal Area Networks is specified by the WiMedia Alliance. D-MAC protocol is suitable for ubiquitous connection in home networks, military/medical applications due to its inexpensive cost, low power consumption, high data rate, and distributed approach. In contrast to IEEE 802.15.3, D-MAC makes all devices have the same functionality. And its networks are self-organized and provide devices with functions such as access to the medium, channel allocation to devices, data transmission, quality of service and synchronization in a distributed manner. D-MAC fundamentally removes the problems of the centralized MAC approach revealed at IEEE 802.15.3 MAC by adopting a distributed architecture. However, the current D-MAC can’t prevent QoS degradations, occurred by mobile nodes with low data rate due to bad channel status, which cause critical problems in QoS provisioning to isochronous streams and mobile applications. Therefore, we propose a distributed cooperative MAC protocol for multi-hop WiMedia networks using virtual MIMO links. Based on instantaneous Channel State Information among WiMedia devices, our proposed protocol can intelligently select the transmission path with higher data rate to provide advanced QoS with minimum delay for real-time multimedia streaming services.     

Study of Beaconing in Multihop Wireless PAN with Distributed Control

Distributed media access control (MAC) architecture has many merits to make it a favorable candidate for high-data-rate wireless personal area networks (WPANs) with physical layer (PHY) based on ultrawideband (UWB) technology. This paper focuses on the WiMedia MAC, which is the first distributed MAC for WPANs, approved as a standard. In such a MAC, all devices transmit their beacons to provide timing reference and to broadcast control and reservation information, that is, to maintain device synchronization. We investigate problems related to beacon collisions, which occur when multiple devices join a piconet almost at the same time. To join a piconet or to resolve a collision, a device chooses a slot for its beacon randomly within some window. We show that an improper slot choice scheme leads to repeated collisions, increasing the time overhead to achieve device synchronization. It also leads devices into trouble in joining and collision resolution, even into deadlocks, when devices have no chance to escape repeated collisions. We develop an analytical model to evaluate the performance of various slot choice schemes for multihop WPANs. The model is employed to compare the efficiency of these choice schemes and to optimize their parameters to achieve the best performance.     

Cooperative Distributed MAC Design for Cross-layer Link Adaptation of UWB WPAN Devices

In this paper, we propose an efficient resource reservation scheme using cross-layer link adaptation for Ultra Wide Band Wireless Personal Area Network with Distributed Medium Access Control (D-MAC). Since the WiMedia D-MAC supporting Distributed Reservation Protocol (DRP) scheme causes lots of conflicts due to failure of beacon detection in wireless channel environment, overall performances of the WiMedia D-MAC can be deteriorated. Therefore, we propose Relay DRP protocol with Relay Node Selection criterion, which makes a relay path to avoid DRP conflicts or harsh channel conditions through cross-layer link adaptation of cooperative relay transmission scheme and is compliant with the current WiMedia D-MAC protocol. Simulation results demonstrate performance improvements of the proposed method for throughput and energy consumption.     

Context awareness beacon scheduling scheme for congestion control in vehicle to vehicle safety communication

Vehicle safety applications based on vehicle to vehicle communication typically transmit safety-related beacons to all neighboring vehicles with high reliability and a strict timeline. However, due to high vehicle mobility, dynamic network topology and limited network resource, this periodic beaconing could lead to congestion in the communication network. Therefore, beacon transmission method has a special challenge to efficiently use the limited network resources to satisfy the requirements of safety applications. With this motivation, we propose a novel distributed beacon scheduling scheme referred to as the context awareness beacon scheduling (CABS) which is based on spatial context information dynamically scheduling the beacon by means of TDMA-like transmission. The proposed beacon scheduling scheme was evaluated using different traffic scenarios within both a realistic channel model and IEEE 802.11p PHY/MAC model in our simulation. The simulation results showed that the performance of the CABS scheme was better than periodic scheduling in terms of packet delivery ratio and channel access delay. Also, the CABS scheme satisfies the requirements of the safety applications.     

A Cooperative MAC Protocol for QoS Enhancement in Wireless USB Networks

Wireless USB (WUSB) is the USB technology merged with WiMedia PHY/MAC based on success of wired USB, and it can be applied to various mobile applications such as laptop, cellular phone, etc. Also, WUSB can provide the better user convenience than wired USB applications as well as be applied to the legacy USB application, since it provides high speed connection between host and devices for the compatibility with USB 2.0 specification and removes the cable among devices using the USB protocol. However the current WUSB protocol can’t prevent the QoS degradation occurred by mobile nodes with low data rate. This problem causes the critical problems in QoS provisioning to isochronous streams and mobile applications. Therefore, we propose a new cooperative MAC protocol for WUSB network with virtual MIMO (multi input multi output) link. Based on instantaneous channel state information among WUSB devices, our proposed protocol can intelligently select the transmission path with higher data rate between WUSB host and WUSB device as well as between WUSB device and WUSB device. Thus our proposed protocol can provide advanced QoS with minimum delay for real-time multimedia services.     

Performance of autonomous dynamic channel assignment and powercontrol for TDMA/FDMA wireless access

We combine autonomous algorithms for dynamic channel assignment (DCA) and power control in a TDMA/FDMA wireless system as a medium access control (MAC) protocol. The DCA algorithm determines paired radio channels that experience the least interference and are least likely to cause interference. The power control algorithm uses local estimations of signal to interference ratio (SIR) at a receiver to iteratively command power adjustment on the desired transmitter. A common control frequency, which is frame-synchronized among base stations, provides all necessary information for DCA without blind slots. Computer simulations are used to evaluate system performance. Results from computer simulations demonstrate good spectrum efficiency and robustness. Although studied under a specific set of parameters, this type of MAC protocol can be applied in different wireless communications environments     

Performance analysis of adaptive MAC protocol in VANETs considering the potential impact on throughput and transmission delays

The existing adaptive multichannel medium access control (MAC) protocols in vehicular ad hoc networks can adjust themselves according to different vehicular traffic densities. These protocols can increase throughput and guarantee a bounded transmission delay for real‐time safety applications. However, the optimized control channel interval is computed based on the maximum throughput while ignoring the strict safety packet transmission delay requirements. In this paper, we analyze the effects of the throughput and strict safety packet transmission delay with adaptive multichannel MAC protocols, such as connectivity‐aware MAC (CA MAC), adaptive multi‐priority distributed MAC (APDM), multi‐priority supported p‐persistent MAC (MP MAC), and variable control channel interval MAC (VCI) protocols. The performance and analysis results show that: (a) under a low data rate condition, CA MAC does not guarantee a strict safety packet transmission delay; (b) APDM not only satisfies the safety packet transmission requirement, but also provides the lowest safety packet transmission delay; (c) under a high data rate condition, we suggest APDM for use as an adaptive MAC protocol because it allows for high throughput for nonsafety packets and preserves low safety packet transmission delay; (d) under a low data rate condition with various data packet sizes, we suggest MP MAC for high throughput, which satisfies the safety packet transmission requirement; and (e) under low vehicle density and low data rate conditions, VCI can support high throughput. A balance between transmission delay and throughput must be considered to improve the optimal efficiency, reliability, and adaptability.     

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...     

A hardware accelerated implementation of the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC protocol

We present a hardware/software implementation of the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC protocol. Processing-intensive and time-critical protocol tasks are handled by a protocol accelerator that is integrated on-chip with a 32-bit general-purpose processor in order to achieve a moderate (20–40 MHz) system clock frequency. This enables low-power wireless devices compliant with this standard, providing high data rate, multimedia communication. One of the main tasks of the protocol accelerator is to analyze received or transmitted beacons. Based on the channel time allocations broadcast in the beacon and frame information stored in a hardware transmission queue, frames are transmitted without immediate control of the processor. Other features of the protocol accelerator include CRC generation, handling of immediate acknowledgment frames, and direct memory access.     

面向实时业务的认知无线网络 MAC 层频谱接入方案

摘 要：为满足认知无线网络中宽带业务实时传输的需求,提出低延迟的MAC层频谱接入方案,包括频谱感知调度与信道接入竞争两部分。在频谱感知阶段,认知用户选取最佳可用信道数实现感知与传输的延迟最小化;在信道接入竞争阶段,协议考虑频谱资源动态变化的特点,通过设计数据帧格式以及邻居节点协同侦听机制,减小信道冲突与“聋终端”的影响。理论与实验结果表明,与传统的认知无线网络MAC层协议相比,提出的接入方案数据传输延迟更短,同时在授权信道空闲率较大时吞吐量性能略优。     

A Fair and QoS-Aware Resource Allocation Scheme in UWB WPANs with WiMedia Distributed MAC

Merits of distributed medium access control specified by WiMedia Alliance such as distributed nature and high data rate make it a favorite candidate standard for high rate wireless personal area network. However, the current WiMedia MAC standard has not considered supporting Quality of Service (QoS) even though QoS parameters such as a range of service rates are provided to each traffic stream (TS). Therefore, we propose a fair and QoS-aware resource allocation method that provides a fair and maximized QoS for all TSs according to the current traffic load condition and differentiates SoQ among different QoS classes while guaranteeing fairness of SoQ within a QoS class in a fully distributed manner. Even in case that the traffic load varies, each device independently recognizes the changes and calculates fair and maximum allowable service rates for TSs. From the simulation results, it is proven that the proposed method achieves high capacity of TSs and fair QoS provisioning under various traffic load conditions.     

BeamMAC: A new paradigm for medium access in wireless networks

Medium access using the distributed coordination function of IEEE 802.11 is not efficient in wireless multihop networks if the devices are equipped with beamforming antennas. This paper proposes a distributed MAC protocol that goes completely away from the spatial reservation scheme of 802.11. It facilitates the use of beamforming antennas by following an announcement-objection scheme: a potential sender must “simulate” a transmission on a signaling channel before it can access the traffic channel. Based on this simulation, each receiving device estimates the expected interference and objects to the transmission if necessary. This paradigm overcomes the drawback of 802.11-based approaches that neighboring devices are silenced irrespective of whether or not they disturb signal reception. It benefits from a tight interaction of the MAC and physical layer.     

PAINT: Priority aware interference mitigation techniques for improving coexistence in home area networks of smart grid

As smart grid (SG) home area networks (HANs) communicate with various smart devices such as meters, sensors, and actuators on a 2.4‐GHz unlicensed band, the coexistence of different wireless technologies in such networks is a common phenomenon due to the overlapping of channels. In this research, homogeneous and heterogeneous interference are considered to address the coexistence problem in smart utility networks (SUNs). The homogeneous interference is mitigated by utilizing the contention free period (CFP) and the contention access period (CAP) of the MAC layer superframe of IEEE 802.15.4g designed for SUNs. This frame is used to get access for the channel. For this, a slotted CSMA/CA algorithm is used for various priority levels of data with adjustable backoff period (BP) and clear channel assessment (CCA) period in order that nodes (devices) with high priority can achieve high probability of channel access. By modeling the proposed scheme using the Markov chain, the exactness of the proposed scheme is assessed based on throughput, channel access delay, energy consumption per bit, and probability of successful data transmission and collision. A performance evaluation of the proposed scheme is further investigated by comparing it with the existing scheme PA‐MAC. In addition, a channel switching mechanism is explored to mitigate the heterogeneous interference with the help of a Naive Bayes classifier prediction. Finally, the prediction indicates that by choosing the non‐coexisting and the non‐overlapping channel, the proposed channel switching mechanism effectively mitigates the heterogeneous interference.     

A Multi-Hop Resource Reservation Scheme for Seamless Real-Time QoS Guarantee in WiMedia Distributed MAC Protocol

In this paper, a multi-hop range conflict-free resource reservation scheme for UWB (Ultra Wide Band) WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network) with D-MAC (Distributed Medium Access Control) is proposed. Unlike the centralized IEEE 802.15.3 MAC, the D-MAC UWB specified by WiMedia Alliance supports DRP (Distributed Reservation Protocol) mechanism which makes all devices be self-organized and removes the SOP (Simultaneous Operating Piconet) problem, i.e., packet collisions between overlapped piconets in the centralized IEEE 802.15.3 MAC. However, since each device’s mobility perspective in multi-hop environment has not been taken into account in the current WiMedia D-MAC, it may cause a “mobile” hidden node problem. In addition, once a DRP conflict occurs due to the mobile hidden node problem, only one of the DRP reservations involved in that DRP conflict maintains the reserved MASs, while the other DRP reservations must be terminated and DRP negotiations for them have to be re-started although only a few MASs are overlapped. Such DRP termination and renegotiation time delays due to the DRP conflicts can be a critical problem to the mobile devices transceiving real-time QoS traffic streams. Therefore, we propose a mechanism to prevent and resolve multi-hop range DRP conflicts due to each device’s mobility in D-MAC environment and demonstrate its guaranteed Seamless QoS and prioritized real-time QoS performances via numerical analyses.     

Fast channel access and DCA scheme for connection andconnectionless-oriented services in UMTS

An efficient MAC protocol and flexible dynamic channel allocation (DCA) scheme for the UMTS-TDD mode is presented which exploits the characteristics of connectionless and connection-oriented services. The proposed protocol gives fast channel access and high bandwidth efficiency in any traffic scenario asymmetric between uplink and downlink channels, particularly in the presence of Internet traffic     

Split-channel pipelined packet scheduling for wireless networks

To reduce medium access control (MAC) overhead and improve channel utilization, there has been extensive research on dynamically adjusting the channel access behavior of a contending station based on channel feedback information. This paper explores an alternative approach, named pipelined packet scheduling, to reduce the MAC overhead. MAC overheads can be divided into bandwidth-dependent and bandwidth-independent components and these overheads can both be reduced by using split-channel pipelining mechanisms, as demonstrated in this paper. In the past, pipelining mechanisms have not been well studied. This paper introduces two total pipelining schemes that attempt to fully pipeline contention resolution with data transmission. Further, the paper identifies shortcomings of total pipelining in the wireless environment and proposes a partial pipelining approach to overcome these shortcomings. Simulation results show that substantial performance improvement in channel utilization, average packet access delay, and access energy cost can be achieved with a properly designed scheme.     

DCR‐MAC: distributed cognitive radio MAC protocol for wireless ad hoc networks

The MAC protocol for a cognitive radio network should allow access to unused spectrum holes without (or with minimal) interference to incumbent system devices. To achieve this main goal, in this paper a distributed cognitive radio MAC (DCR‐MAC) protocol is proposed for wireless ad hoc networks that provides for the detection and protection of incumbent systems around the communication pair. DCR‐MAC operates over a separate common control channel and multiple data channels; hence, it is able to deal with dynamics of resource availability effectively in cognitive networks. A new type of hidden node problem is introduced that focuses on possible signal collisions between incumbent devices and cognitive radio ad hoc devices. To this end, a simple and efficient sensing information exchange mechanism between neighbor nodes with little overhead is proposed. In DCR‐MAC, each ad hoc node maintains a channel status table with explicit and implicit channel sensing methods. Before a data transmission, to select an optimal data channel, a reactive neighbor information exchange is carried out. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed cognitive radio MAC protocol can greatly reduce interference to the neighbor incumbent devices. A higher number of neighbor nodes leads to better protection of incumbent devices. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Simple Time Shift Scheme for Beacon Broadcasting Based on Cluster-Tree IEEE 802.15.4 Low-Rate WPANs

Wireless sensor networks based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard is able to carry out short-distance transmissions in low-rate and low-power wireless personal area networks. To access the channel, it uses the slotted carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) in the contention access period (CAP) under superframe structure with beacon frame broadcast to bound the duration of superframe. However, the beacon frame is transmitted periodically without CSMA/CA so that it could be collided continuously. This type of collision causes node lost synchronization and unable to join a network because the beacon frame cannot be normally received. This paper proposes a simple time shift scheme based on IEEE 802.15.4 to keep original superframe structure and distribute transmission of beacon frame over active period to avoid beacon frame collisions. We use a simple function to allocate beacon frame transmission in the active period. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly reduces the beacon collision and lost synchronization rate, and it also improves the throughput.     

MAC Enhancement for High Speed Communications in the 802.15.3c mmWave WPAN

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) is highly focused as a powerful mean enabling to perform very high data transmission. This paper proposes the enhancement of media access control (MAC) for the mmWave WPAN. The existing MACs have limits to achieve high data transmission over 1–2 Gbps by reasons of the low frame transmission efficiency and the high overhead of signal exchanges. In addition, the transmitting frames need to be protected in a poor channel condition for the high quality of service. The proposed MAC provides frame aggregation with unequal error protection (UEP) and block acknowledgment (Blk-ACK), which can solve the problems of the existing MACs and guarantee the high quality of service. Our theoretical throughput analysis shows that the proposed MAC does the high throughput enhancement compared to the existing MACs and achieves the MAC throughput over 2Gbps in the mmWave WPAN.