Quality-of-service mechanisms in all-IP wireless access networks

In this paper, we focus on resource reservation protocol (RSVP)-based quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning schemes under Internet protocol (IP) micromobility. We consider QoS provisioning mechanisms for on-going RSVP flows during handoff. First, the rerouting of RSVP branch path at a crossover router (CR) at every handoff event can minimize resource reservation delays and signaling overheads, and in turn the handoff service degradation can be minimized. We show that RSVP branch path rerouting scheme could give a good tradeoff between the resource reservation cost and the link usage. Second, the new RSVP reservation can be made along the branch path toward the CR via a new base station in advance, while the existing reservation path is maintained, and in turn the on-going flow can be kept with the guaranteed QoS. We also show that seamless switching of RSVP branch path could provide the QoS guarantee by adaptively adjusting the pilot signal threshold values. Third, during RSVP resource reservation over wireless link, dynamic resource allocation scheme is used to give a statistical guarantee on the handoff success of on-going flows. We finally obtain the forced termination probability of guaranteed service flows, the average system time of best effort flows by using a transition rate matrix approach.     

Mobility-aware timeout medium access control protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), has been under development for a while by the academia and industry. Due to limited computational power, a typical sensor node may experience operational challenges. Moreover, mobility has become an important feature since emergency and healthcare related applications are evolving in WSNs. Consideration of mobile nodes in WSNs introduce new challenges for the designers. In this paper, an enhanced version of T-MAC protocol (a well-known medium access control protocol in WSNs) known as MT-MAC is proposed. Using the capturing fluctuation in RSSI and LQI values of the received SYNC packets, MT-MAC solves high packet drop ratio in T-MAC. By detecting the mobility, a mobile node softly handover to a new virtual cluster without losing connection with other nodes. The performance of the proposed solution is then compared with T-MAC, S-MAC as well as other well-known mobility-aware MAC (MS-MAC) protocol. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol significantly increases the throughput and packet delivery ratio of T-MAC in exchange for a small increase in power consumption. Compared to MS-MAC protocol, the proposed approach can reduce power consumption by 20–65%, and achieve slightly higher packet delivery ratio.     

A two-phase utility maximization framework for wireless medium access control

In multi-hop wireless networks, the optimal medium access control (MAC) design is challenging, partially due to the time-varying nature of the PHY-layer communication channels and the network topology. In this paper, we take a utility maximization approach to study fair MAC design towards QoS provisioning. To this end, we first identify two key challenges of wireless access control, namely the topology dependency and the channel dependency, therein. Based on the observation that the topology change and channel variation occur on different time scales, we decompose the utility maximization to two phases: a "global" optimization phase addresses the topology dependency, and arbitrates fair channel access across the links by adapting the persistence probability to achieve long-term fairness, and a "local" optimization phase deals with the channel dependence, and determines the transmission duration based on local channel conditions while maintaining short-term fairness. Observing that the MAC throughput depends on the realizations of channel contention in random access networks, we use stochastic approximation to investigate in depth the MAC design with the adaptive persistence mechanism in the global phase. Using Lyapunov's Stability Theorems and LaSalle's Invariance Theorem, we establish the stability of the proposed algorithm for the global phase and analyze the fairness under (omegaoarr, kappa)-fair utility functions. Our findings reveal that under the large network assumption, there exists a single equilibrium point for the proposed (omegaoarr, kappa)-fair MAC algorithm provided that kappa > 1. We also present the solution to the local optimization phase under general fairness constraints.     

Channel allocation and medium access control for wireless sensor networks

Recent developments in sensor technology, as seen in Berkeley’s Mica2 Mote, Rockwell’s WINS nodes and the IEEE 802.15.4 Zigbee, have enabled support for single-transceiver, multi-channel communication. The task of channel assignment with minimum interference, also named as the 2-hop coloring problem, allows repetition of colors occurs only if the nodes are separated by more than 2 hops. Being NP complete, development of efficient heuristics for this coloring problem is an open research area and this paper proposes the Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA) algorithm as a novel solution. Once channels are assigned, a Medium Access Control protocol must be devised so that channel selection, arbitration and scheduling occur with maximum energy savings and reduced message overhead, both critical considerations for sensor networks. The contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) development and analysis of the DCA algorithm that assigns optimally minimum channels in a distributed manner in order to make subsequent communication free from both primary and secondary interference and (2) proposing CMAC, a fully desynchronized multi-channel MAC protocol with minimum hardware requirements. CMAC takes into account the fundamental energy constraint in sensor nodes by placing them in a default sleep mode as far as possible, enables spatial channel re-use and ensures nearly collision free communication. Simulation results reveal that the DCA consumes significantly less energy while giving a legal distributed coloring. CMAC, our MAC protocol that leverages this coloring, has been thoroughly evaluated with various modes in SMAC, a recent protocol that achieves energy savings through coordinated sleeping. Results show that CMAC obtains nearly 200% reduction in energy consumption, significantly improved throughput, and end-to-end delay values that are 50–150% better than SMAC for our simulated topologies.     

A taxonomy for medium access control protocols in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (Wsns) tend to be highly optimized due to severely restricted constraints. Various medium access control (Mac) protocols forWsns have been proposed, being specially tailored to a target application. This paper proposes a taxonomy for the different mechanisms employed in those protocols. The taxonomy characterizes the protocols according to the methods implemented to handle energy consumption, quality of service and adaptability requirements. We also present an overview of the transceptors found inWsns, identifying how events on communication affect the energy consumption. Based on the taxonomy, we classify existingMac protocols. Finally, we discuss challenging trends inMac protocols forWsns, such as security issues and software radios.     

An overview of MIMO-oriented channel access in wireless networks [medium access control protocols for wireless LANs]

The integration of MIMO technology in WLANs has recently been the locus of extensive research. The main objectives of this technology are to improve channel reuse and or reduce energy consumption. In this article, we give an overview of MIMO systems and their use in WLANs. We highlight the different types of gains that MIMO offers and then discuss some of the work that has been done on MAC design. We conclude by outlining several open issues thai must be addressed for MIMO-based systems.     

Multi-objective cooperative medium access control protocols in wireless Ad-Hoc networks

Wireless Networks - Relay-based cooperative communications have been emerging as a novel paradigm in many wireless protocols. The IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocols have attracted...     

Spatial correlation-based collaborative medium access control in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are mainly characterized by dense deployment of sensor nodes which collectively transmit information about sensed events to the sink. Due to the spatial correlation between sensor nodes subject to observed events, it may not be necessary for every sensor node to transmit its data. This paper shows how the spatial correlation can be exploited on the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first effort which exploits spatial correlation in WSN on the MAC layer. A theoretical framework is developed for transmission regulation of sensor nodes under a distortion constraint. It is shown that a sensor node can act as a representative node for several other sensor nodes observing the correlated data. Based on the theoretical framework, a distributed, spatial Correlation-based Collaborative Medium Access Control (CC-MAC) protocol is then designed which has two components: Event MAC (E-MAC) and Network MAC (N-MAC). E-MAC filters out the correlation in sensor records while N-MAC prioritizes the transmission of route-thru packets. Simulation results show that CC-MAC achieves high performance in terms energy, packet drop rate, and latency.     

The problem of medium access control in wireless sensor networks

In this article we revisit the problem of scheduled access through a detailed foray into the questions of energy consumption and throughput for MAC protocols in wireless sensor networks. We consider a static network model that rules out simultaneous transmission and reception by any sensor node and consequently requires partitioning of nodes into disjoint sets of transmitters and receivers at any time instant. Under the assumption of circular transmission (reception) ranges with sharp boundaries, a greedy receiver activation heuristic is developed relying on the network connectivity map to determine distinct receiver groups to be activated within disjoint time intervals. To conserve limited energy resources in sensor networks, the time allocation to each receiver group is based on the residual battery energy available at the respective transmitters. Upon activating each receiver group separately, the additional time-division mechanism of group TDMA is imposed to schedule transmissions interfering at the non-intended destinations within separate fractions of time in order to preserve the reliable feedback information. The two-layered time-division structure of receiver activation and group TDMA algorithms offers distributed and polynomial-time solutions (as required by autonomous sensor networks) to the problems of link scheduling as well as energy and throughput-efficient resource allocation in wireless access. The associated synchronization and overhead issues are not considered in this article.     

A near-optimum cross-layered distributed queuing protocol for wireless LAN [medium access control protocols for wireless LANs]

Distributed queuing collision avoidance (DQCA) is a distributed MAC protocol for WLAN systems that offers near optimum performance. The protocol implements a reservation scheme that ensures collision-free data transmissions for high traffic load and switches smoothly and automatically to a random access mechanism when the traffic load is light, improving the delay performance for this situation. In this article the DQCA protocol operation is thoroughly described, and its algorithm rules are given. Furthermore, an enhanced cross-layer scheduling mechanism is also proposed for inclusion in the protocol procedure. This mechanism employs a virtual priority function to reschedule transmissions according to a cross-layer design. Two possible configurations are described in this article by including a PHY-MAC dialog involving channel stale information and the waiting time of the packets in the system, offering a trade-off between throughput maximization and fairness. The performance in terms of throughput and mean delay of DQCA and the two cross-layer schemes has been evaluated through simulations, and a significant enhancement over legacy IEEE 802.11 operation is achieved. The obtained results emphasize the advantages of the proposed schemes and the importance of cross-layer design in wireless communication systems.     

Multipacket reception in random access wireless networks: fromsignal processing to optimal medium access control

There has been considerable interest in the idea of cross-layer design of wireless networks. This is motivated by the need to provide a greater level of adaptivity to variations of wireless channels. This article examines one aspect of the interaction between the physical and medium access control layers. In particular, we consider the impact of signal processing techniques that enable multipacket reception on the throughput and design of random access protocols     

DEC-MAC: delay- and energy-aware cooperative medium access control protocol for wireless sensor networks

This paper deals with two critical issues in wireless sensor networks: reducing the end-to-end packet delivery delay and increasing the network lifetime through the use of cooperative communications. Here, we propose a delay- and energy-aware cooperative medium access control (DEC-MAC) protocol, which trades off between the packet delivery delay and a node’s energy consumption while selecting a cooperative relay node. DEC-MAC attempts to balance the energy consumption of the sensor nodes by taking into account a node’s residual energy as part of the relay selection metric, thus increasing the network’s lifetime. The relay selection algorithm exploits the process of elimination and the complementary cumulative distribution function for determining the most optimal relay within the shortest time period. Our numerical analysis demonstrates that the DEC-MAC protocol is able to determine the optimal relay in no more than three mini slots. Our simulation results show that the DEC-MAC protocol improves the end-to-end packet delivery latency and the network lifetime significantly compared to the state-of-the-art protocols, LC-MAC and CoopMAC.     

An efficient handoff management scheme for mobile wireless ATMnetworks

A new handoff management scheme for wireless ATM networks is proposed. In this scheme, all cells are connected to their neighboring cells by permanent virtual circuits (PVCs) and to the access switch (AS) by switched virtual circuits (SVCs) which are only for new calls. Some carefully chosen cells, called rerouting cells, are also connected to the AS by PVCs. In summary, if a mobile roams to an ordinary neighboring cell, its traffic path is simply elongated by a PVC connecting the old and new cells. If a mobile roams to a rerouting cell, its traffic path is rerouted to a PVC between the AS and rerouting cell. By using PVC's for handoff calls, we can guarantee fast and seamless handoff. At the same time, our scheme improves the path efficiency by limiting the maximum number of hops that a path can be extended. Also, allowing path rerouting at a suitable time means the network resources are more efficiently utilized     

Variable bit rate VOiP in IEEE 802.11e wireless LANs [medium access control protocols for wireless LANs]

WLANs have become a ubiquitous networking technology deployed everywhere. Meanwhile. VoIP is one popular application and a viable alternative to traditional telephony systems due to its cost efficiency. VoIP over WLAN (VoWLAN) has been emerging as an infrastructure to provide low-cost wireless voice services. However, VoWLAN poses significant challenges due to the characteristics of contention-based protocols and wireless networks. In this article we propose two mechanisms to provide quality of service for variable bit rate VoIP in IEEE 802.11e contention-based channel access WLANs: access time-based admission control and access point dynamic access. Simulation results are conducted to study these schemes.     

EETP-MAC: energy efficient traffic prioritization for medium access control in wireless body area networks

Wireless body area network (WBAN) has witnessed significant attentions in the healthcare domain using biomedical sensor-based monitoring of heterogeneous nature of vital signs of a patient’s body. The design of frequency band, MAC superframe structure, and slots allocation to the heterogeneous nature of the patient’s packets have become the challenging problems in WBAN due to the diverse QoS requirements. In this context, this paper proposes an Energy Efficient Traffic Prioritization for Medium Access Control (EETP-MAC) protocol, which provides sufficient slots with higher bandwidth and guard bands to avoid channels interference causing longer delay. Specifically, the design of EETP-MAC is broadly divided in to four folds. Firstly, patient data traffic prioritization is presented with broad categorization including Non-Constrained Data (NCD), Delay-Constrained Data (DCD), Reliability-Constrained Data (RCD) and Critical Data (CD). Secondly, a modified superframe structure design is proposed for effectively handling the traffic prioritization. Thirdly, threshold based slot allocation technique is developed to reduce contention by effectively quantifying criticality on patient data. Forth, an energy efficient frame design is presented focusing on beacon interval, superframe duration, and packet size and inactive period. Simulations are performed to comparatively evaluate the performance of the proposed EETP-MAC with the state-of-the-art MAC protocols. The comparative evaluation attests the benefit of EETP-MAC in terms of efficient slot allocation resulting in lower delay and energy consumption.

     

Bounds and parameter optimization of medium access control coding for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks

The use of codes to schedule transmissions is an attractive technique able to guarantee a non-zero throughput medium access performance for the nodes of a wireless ad hoc or sensor network regardless of network topology variations. Some authors refer to this technique as topology-transparent scheduling. In this paper, we use the term MAC coding in order to emphasize the exclusive use of codes to achieve topology-transparency within the MAC sub-layer. We present a new upper bound expression on the guaranteed throughput achievable by any linear code used in a MAC coding context. This bound proves to be tighter than the one obtained when the minimum distance of the code is equal to its length. Additionally, we derive new and simple closed analytical expressions for the parameters of maximum distance separable codes that maximize the minimum, average, or joint minimum-average throughput of MAC coding. The optimization methods presented here are also applicable to other codes with available analytical expressions for their minimum distance and distance distribution. Finally, we present system-level simulation results of MAC coding on static and dynamic topologies with mobility and including wireless channel errors. Throughput simulation results are compared with their corresponding analytical expressions and to a random scheduling approach. The results show agreement with analysis and confirm the robustness of MAC coding in maintaining minimum levels of performance with good average performance and graceful degradation.     

Reservation-based distributed medium access in wireless collision channels

We consider an uplink wireless collision channel, shared by multiple mobile users. The medium access protocol incorporates channel reservation that relies on RTS (request-to-send) and CTS (clear-to-send) control packets. Consequently, collisions are reduced to the relatively short periods where mobiles request channel use. In our model, users individually schedule their channel requests, and the objective of each user is to minimize its own power investment subject to a minimum-throughput demand. Our analysis reveals that for feasible throughput demands, there exist exactly two Nash equilibrium points in stationary strategies, with one superior to the other uniformly over all users. We then show how this better equilibrium point can be obtained through distributed best-response mechanisms. Finally, we quantify and discuss the effect of the relative length of data and control periods on capacity, power and delay.     

Wireless medium access control protocols

Technological advances, coupled with the flexibility and mobility of wireless systems, are the driving force behind the Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime paradigm of networking. At the same time, we see a convergence of the telephone, cable and data networks into a unified network that supports multimedia and real-time applications like voice and video in addition to data. Medium access control protocols define rules for orderly access to the shared medium and play a crucial role in the efficient and fair sharing of scarce wireless bandwidth. The nature of the wireless channel brings new issues like location-dependent carrier sensing, time varying channel and burst errors. Low power requirements and half duplex operation of the wireless systems add to the challenge. Wireless MAC protocols have been heavily researched and a plethora of protocols have been proposed. Protocols have been devised for different types of architectures, different applications and different media. This survey discusses the challenges in the design of wireless MAC protocols, classifies them based on architecture and mode of operation, and describes their relative performance and application domains in which they are best deployed.     

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.     

MCCA: a high-throughput MAC strategy for next-generation WLANs [medium access control protocols for wireless LANs]

Wireless LAN technology has been shown to he a revolutionary development during the last decade. Recently popularized IEEE 802.11a/g-based products can support up to 54 Mb/s physical layer rate and provide wireless access to the Internet. However, in order to deal robustly with the unreliable wireless nature, the 802.11 medium access control protocol has a relatively large overhead and hence, the throughput performance is much worse than the underlying physical layer rate. Moreover, along with many emerging applications and services over WLANs, such as voice over WLAN and audio/video streaming, the demand lor faster and higher- capacity WLANs has been growing recently. In this article, we propose a new medium access control protocol for the next-generation high-speed WLANs. The proposed medium access control, called multi-user polling controlled channel access, is composed of two components: multi-layer frame aggregation, which performs aggregation at both the medium access control and the physical layers; and multi-user polling, used to reduce the contention overhead and in turn, achieve higher network utilization. Multi-user polling controlled channel access is compared with the 802.11e-enhanced distributed channel access medium access control. Highly enhanced medium access control efficiency can be achieved by applying multi-user polling controlled channel access. We show the improved medium access control performance in terms of the aggregate throughput of non-QoS Hows with relevant QoS requirements.