Medium access control protocols performance in satellitecommunications

Medium access control protocols are at the core of all forms of electronic communications systems. MAC protocols are designed to coordinate the transmission of packets, retransmission of damaged packets, and resolution of collisions among stations during a contention period. MAC protocols are foundations in low-level network architecture and play a significant role in the performance of higher-level protocols such as multiservices and multimedia application protocols. In this article five classes of MAC protocols are investigated with respect to their applications in satellite communications. These classes include fixed assignments, demand assignment, random access, hybrid random access and reservation, and adaptive protocols. Among several QoS objectives described in high-speed networking and the limitations inherent in satellite communications systems, in this article a set of important performance criteria are identified and used to evaluate different MAC protocols for satellite communications. The performance criteria include high channel throughput, low transmission delay, channel stability, protocol scalability, channel reconfigurability, broadband applicability, and low complexity of the control algorithm. For this, a simulation study is performed among selected MAC protocols from different classes, and their performances have been evaluated for NASA's Mars Regional Network     

A two stage approach for channel transmission rate aware scheduling in directional mmWave WPANs

Millimeter wave (mmWave) communications in 60 GHz band have become a hot topic in wireless communications. New medium access control (MAC) protocols are needed because of the fundamental differences between mmWave communications and existing other communication systems. In mmWave wireless personal area networks, the channel transmission rates of links vary significantly because of the difference in the distance between nodes, the accuracy of beamforming, and the existence of obstructions. Owning to the directivity of mmWave links, spatial reuse should be exploited to improve network capacity. In this paper, we develop a channel transmission rate aware directional MAC protocol, termed RDMAC, in which both the multirate capability of links and spatial reuse are exploited to improve network performance. RDMAC has two stages. The first stage measures the channel transmission rates of links, and a heuristic algorithm is proposed to compute near‐optimal measurement schedules with respect to the total number of measurements. The second stage accommodates the traffic demand of links, and a heuristic transmission scheduling algorithm is proposed to compute near‐optimal transmission schedules with respect to the total transmission time. Simulations under various traffic modes show that compared with existing protocols, RDMAC has lower network latency, higher network throughput, and also a good fairness performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A detailed study of a CDMA based approach to enhance ad hoc network performance

Random access schemes operate typically on a contention based common channel, which brings problems with increasing traffic load. These problems are emphasized in a multi-hop wireless ad hoc network environment. Efficient collision avoidance methods are needed, but they also tend to decrease the spatial capacity of the network. With CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), it is possible to make multiple simultaneous co-located successful transmissions and thus increase network capacity within the limits of multiple access interference (MAI). Bi-code channel access (BCCA) is a method to apply CDMA in ad hoc networking, providing also a common access channel for network connectivity maintenance and self-configuration. With BCCA, collisions are rare, and thus, more straightforward medium access control (MAC) methods can be used. A MAC solution designed especially for BCCA (BC-MAC) and ad hoc networking increases the efficiency of the channel usage. As BCCA is based on receiver code CDMA, the spreading code of the next hop node is needed. A novel network layer spreading code distribution (NSCD) method is proposed for this purpose. The spreading codes are distributed within routing protocol control packets at the route establishment phase.A detailed study on the performance behavior of different methods is provided. Also, interesting aspects considering the ad hoc network operation are discussed. Instead of the widely used unrealistic cut propagation model, a propagation model with realistic MAI calculation is used in this study. It is shown that the use of NSCD increases the network control load only slightly, and that the performance is practically the same as it is with the assumption of known spreading codes. BCCA with its dedicated MAC and NSCD clearly outperforms commonly used methods (like IEEE 802.11) and yet is easy to implement, robust for design parameters under different conditions while maintaining the original idea of ad hoc networking.     

Parallel relay‐assisted three‐phase MIMO space division multiple access transmission for multi‐hop throughput improvement

Multi‐hop communications equipped with parallel relay nodes is an emerging network scenario visible in environments with high node density. Conventional interference‐free medium access control (MAC) has little capability in utilizing such parallel relays because it essentially prohibits the existence of co‐channel interference and limits the feasibility of concurrent communications. This paper aims at presenting a cooperative multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) space division multiple access (SDMA) design that uses each hop's parallel relay nodes to improve multi‐hop throughput performance. Specifically, we use MIMO and SDMA to enable concurrent transmissions (from multiple Tx nodes to single/multiple Rx nodes) and suppress simultaneous links' co‐channel interference. As a joint physical layer (MAC/PHY) solution, our design has multiple MAC modules including load balancing that uniformly splits traffic packets at parallel relay nodes and multi‐hop scheduling taking co‐channel interference into consideration. Meanwhile, our PHY layer modules include distributive channel sounding that exchanges channel information in a decentralized manner and link adaptation module estimating instantaneous link rate per time frame. Simulation results validate that compared with interference‐free MAC or existing Mitigating Interference using Multiple Antennas (MIMA‐MAC), our proposed design can improve end‐to‐end throughput by around 30% to 50%. In addition, we further discuss its application on extended multi‐hop topology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed Medium Access Control Next-Generation CDMA Wireless Networks

The next-generation wireless networks are expected to have a simple infrastructure with distributed control. In this article, we consider a generic distributed network model for future wireless multimedia communications with a code-division multiple access (CDMA) air interface. For the medium access control (MAC) of the network model, we provide an overview of recent research efforts on distributed code assignment and interference control and identify their limitations when applied in next-generation wireless networks supporting multimedia traffic. We also propose a novel distributed MAC scheme to address these limitations, where active receivers determine whether a candidate transmitter should transmit its traffic or defer its transmission to a later time. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed MAC scheme.     

Design of multichannel MAC protocols for wireless ad hoc networks

Medium access control (MAC) protocols coordinate channel access between wireless stations, and they significantly affect the network throughput of wireless ad hoc networks. MAC protocols that are based on a multichannel model can increase the throughput by enabling more simultaneous transmission pairs in the network. In this paper, we comprehensively compare different design methods for multichannel MAC protocols. We classify existing protocols into different categories according to the channel negotiation strategies they employ. The common problems that may be encountered in multichannel design are discussed. We then propose a hybrid protocol that combines the advantages of the two methods of a common control channel and a common control period. The simulation results show that our proposed protocol can significantly outperform two representative protocols. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

BTAC: A Busy Tone Based Cooperative MAC Protocol for Wireless Local Area Networks

Cooperative communications has been actively studied as an effective approach to achieve multi-user/spatial diversity gains and better overall system performance by coordinating multiple users in a dynamic wireless network to share their resources and capabilities. Based on the concept of cooperative communications, this paper proposes and analyzes a Busy Tone based cooperative Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, namely BTAC, for multi-rate Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). A cross-layer Markov chain model is then developed to evaluate the performance of BTAC under dynamic wireless channel conditions. Analytical and simulation results show our BTAC protocol is simple, robust, fully compatible with the IEEE 802.11b standard and can achieve better throughput and delay performance than the standard Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) protocol and the recently-proposed CoopMAC protocol.     

Dynamic cooperative media access control for wireless networks

Cooperative communications can obtain spatial diversity, high channel capacity, and reliable transmission without multiple antennas, and thus, it has become a hot topic in recent years. Different from existing research, this paper pays attention on cooperative media access control (MAC) mechanism, which considers both physical gain and MAC overhead caused by cooperation. To this end, a dynamic cooperative MAC mechanism for wireless networks, called DCMAC, is proposed. DCMAC can obtain the useful channel state information through broadcasting characteristic of wireless channel, choose the suitable helpers to relay data with our proposed helpers selection algorithm, and reserve wireless channel efficiently and dynamically. Numerical results show the effectiveness of DCMAC to improve the system performance.     

Medium Access Control for QoS Provisioning in Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication Networks

The emerging vehicular networks are targeted to provide efficient communications between mobile vehicles and fixed roadside units (RSU), and support mobile multimedia applications and safety services with diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, we propose a busy tone based medium access control (MAC) protocol with enhanced QoS provisioning for life critical safety services. By using busy tone signals for efficient channel preemption in both contention period (CP) and contention free period (CFP), emergency users can access the wireless channel with strict priority when they compete with multimedia users, and thus achieve the minimal access delay. Furthermore, through efficient transmission coordination on the busy tone channel, contention level can be effectively reduced, and the overall network resource utilization can be improved accordingly. We then develop an analytical model to quantify the medium access delay of emergency messages. Extensive simulations with Network Simulator (NS)-2 validate the analysis and demonstrate that the proposed MAC can guarantee reliable and timely emergency message dissemination in a vehicular network.     

A Hybrid Token-CDMA MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Token-passing medium access control (MAC) protocols are gaining interest among wireless ad hoc network researchers as they provide unrivaled advantages over the existing IEEE 802.11 standards. This paper introduces a hybrid token-code division multiple access (CDMA) MAC protocol that is based on a token-passing scheme with the incorporation of CDMA. With its unique CDMA feature, the proposed MAC is able to support multiple simultaneous transmissions. The proposed protocol provides both quality of service (QoS) and high network resource utilization while ensuring the stability of the network. This paper examines the performance of the proposed MAC scheme by simulation and compares its performance against that of other MAC protocols that have appeared in the literature. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed MAC scheme is effective in decreasing the packet delay and significantly shortens the length of the queue. The input traffic model used in the simulation is a two-state Markov-Modulated Poisson Process (MMPP). The data rate QoS is enforced by implementing a modified leaky bucket mechanism in the proposed MAC scheme. The simulation also takes into account channel link errors caused by the wireless link by implementing a multilayered Gilbert-Elliot model.     

EM channel characteristics and their impact on MAC layer performance in underwater surveillance networks

Wireless communications and multihop networking based on electromagnetic (EM) radios have been considered as an alternative to acoustic communications in seawater because in typical applications for networked underwater sensing, EM waves are much less susceptible to multipath distortion and environmental noise. In this paper, we discuss the characteristics of EM channels in seawater and derive a novel EM signal propagation model. Based on the propagation model, we implement in the QualNet network simulator an EM underwater surveillance network for studying the impact of these unique characteristics of underwater EM channels on the media access control (MAC) layer performance. Both a single‐hop network model and a multihop network model are simulated. Simulation results show that the carrier sense multiple access without or with acknowledgement (CSMAWithoutACK or CSMAWithACK, respectively) has advantages over ALOHA and multiple access with collision avoidance in terms of packet average delay, packet delivery ratio, and MAC scheme overhead. In the multihop network model, the use of CSMAWithoutACK significantly reduces the packet average delay and the MAC scheme overhead, and both CSMAWithoutACK and CSMAWithACK achieve more than 90% packet delivery ratio. Therefore, CSMAWithoutACK (with no handshaking via request‐to‐send and clear‐to‐send control packets) is the most appropriate MAC protocol to be used in multihop EM‐based underwater surveillance networks. © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada 2014. Reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Industry Canada     

Hop-by-Hop Congestion Control Over a Wireless Multi-Hop Network

This paper focuses on congestion control over multi-hop, wireless networks. In a wireless network, an important constraint that arises is that due to the MAC (Media Access Control) layer. Many wireless MACs use a time-division strategy for channel access, where, at any point in space, the physical channel can be accessed by a single user at each instant of time. In this paper, we develop a fair hop-by-hop congestion control algorithm with the MAC constraint being imposed in the form of a channel access time constraint, using an optimization-based framework. In the absence of delay, we show that this algorithm are globally stable using a Lyapunov-function-based approach. Next, in the presence of delay, we show that the hop-by-hop control algorithm has the property of spatial spreading. In other words, focused loads at a particular spatial location in the network get "smoothed" over space. We derive bounds on the "peak load" at a node, both with hop-by-hop control, as well as with end-to-end control, show that significant gains are to be had with the hop-by-hop scheme, and validate the analytical results with simulation     

WTRP - wireless token ring protocol

The wireless token ring protocol (WTRP) is a novel medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless local area networks (WLANs). In contrast with IEEE 802.11 networks, WTRP guarantees quality of service (QoS) in terms of bounded latency and reserved bandwidth, which are critical in many real-time applications. Compared to 802.11, WTRP improves efficiency by reducing the number of retransmissions due to collisions, and it is more fair as all stations use the channel for the same amount of time. Stations take turns transmitting and give up the right to transmit after a specified amount of time. WTRP is a distributed protocol that supports many topologies, as not all stations need to be connected to each other or to a central station. WTRP is robust against single node failures, and recovers gracefully from multiple simultaneous faults. WTRP is suitable for interaccess point coordination in ITS DSRC, safety-critical vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and home networking, and provides extensions to other networks and Mobile IP.     

A survey, classification and comparative analysis of medium access control protocols for ad hoc networks

Recent technological advances in wireless communications offer new opportunities and challenges for wireless ad hoc networking. In the absence of the fixed infrastructure that characterizes traditional wireless networks, control and management of wireless ad hoc networks must be distributed across the nodes, thus requiring carefully designed Medium Access Control (MAC) layer protocols. In this article we survey, classify, and analyze 34 MAC layer protocols for wireless ad hoc networks, ranging from industry standards to research proposals. Through this analysis, six key features emerge: (1) channel separation and access; (2) topology; (3) power; (4) transmission initiation; (5) traffic load and scalability; and (6) range. These features allow us to characterize and classify the protocols, to analyze the tradeoffs produced by different design decisions, and to assess the suitability of various design combinations for ad hoc network applications. The classification and the tradeoff analysis yield design guidelines for future wireless ad hoc network MAC layer protocols.     

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.     

Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.4 MAC Protocol with ACK Frame Transmission

A common way of achieving reliable data transmission in wireless sensor network applications is by using a retransmission mechanism with medium access control (MAC) level acknowledgements. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which is widely acknowledged as the state-of-the-art PHY/MAC standard for wireless sensor networks, supports MAC-level acknowledgements and retransmissions. In this paper, based on a three-dimensional discrete-time Markov chain, we propose a new analytical model to analyse the performance of the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol with retransmission and MAC level acknowledgements under unsaturated traffic conditions. Further, we present a simplified version of the proposed analytical model with some approximations. Using the proposed analytical models, we evaluate the network performance in terms of the aggregate channel throughput, average power consumption of a node, frame discard ratio, and frame delivery ratio. The analytical results are substantiated through ns?2 simulations. The effects of the frame arrival rate, number of nodes, frame length and various MAC parameters, on the performance of the network are discussed. The results of both analytical models are compared and it is shown that the simplified model provides an acceptable accuracy with less computational complexity.     

A Store-and-Forward Cooperative MAC for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Cooperative communications are widely used to increase the throughput of wireless networks. It is important to select the appropriate relay nodes to enhance the performance of cooperative communications. In wireless ad hoc networks, such as IEEE802.11 WLAN, the distributed MAC is used to share the wireless channel to different nodes. In this work, a simple store-and-forward cooperative MAC (SFC-MAC) is proposed, which is fully compatible with IEEE 802.11 MAC. In SSF-MAC, the relay node just stores the packets received from the sender and forward them to the receiver after it successfully contend the channel. Furthermore, an model is built to analyze the performance of relay methods in the ideal channel and imperfect channel. We utilize throughput performance as a metric to determine whether a relay node is selected. The analysis and simulation results show that the proposed simple SSF-MAC can increase the system throughput.     

Dynamic resource allocation for quality of service on a PON withhome networks

Earlier efforts on optical access concentrated on the design of PONs for the collection and distribution portion of the access network. A possible evolution scenario for these types of access networks could be the SuperPON system. The SuperPON system exploits all possible upgrades of an FSAN APON system. In these networks the optical hardware is very simple, but a media access control protocol is needed for upstream traffic control. Even so, the role of communications is already well established in the office environment, thanks to networking innovations such as the Ethernet LAN. With the development of cheap, affordable broadband communications and the increasing complexity of consumer goods, it seems natural to extend the network into homes. As home area network application ever increases, we consider connectivity between the access network and the home network, which generates multiple traffic, in order to design a MAC protocol over the SuperPON access network with home networks. Global FIFO is quite simple, and allows dynamic upstream bandwidth allocation on the basis of a request-and-permit mechanism on the APON architecture. It has good bandwidth efficiency; however, being cell-based, it does not consider multiple traffic types from home networks. In this article we describe and analyze a new dynamic MAC resource allocation algorithm called multiple queue-FIFO that can achieve good performance under the SuperPON access network in the home network environment     

A survey and qualitative analysis of mac protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks

In order to avoid transmission collisions in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), a reliable and efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol is needed. Vehicular MANETs (VANETs) have vehicles as network nodes and their main characteristics are high mobility and speed. Active safety applications for VANETs need to establish reliable communications with minimal transmission collisions. Only few MAC protocols designed for MANETs can be adapted to efficiently work in VANETs. In this article we provide a short overview on some MANET MAC protocols, and then we summarize and qualitatively compare the ones suited for VANETs     

A Cross-Layer Approach for WLAN Voice Capacity Planning

This paper presents an analytical approach to determining the maximum number of on/off voice flows that can be supported over a wireless local area network (WLAN), under a quality of service (QoS) constraint the authors consider multiclass distributed coordination function (DCF) based medium access control (MAC) that can provision service differentiation via contention window (CW) differentiation. Each on/off voice flow specifies a stochastic delay bound at the network layer as the QoS requirement. The downlink voice flows are multiplexed at the access point (AP) to alleviate the MAC congestion, where the AP is assigned a smaller CW compared to that of the mobile nodes to guarantee the aggregate downlink throughput. There are six-fold contributions in this paper: 1) a nonsaturated multiclass DCF model is developed; 2) a cross-layer framework is proposed, which integrates the network-layer queueing analysis with the multiclass DCF MAC modeling; 3) the channel busyness ratio control is included in the framework to guarantee the analysis accuracy; 4) the framework is exploited for statistical multiplexing gain analysis, network capacity planning, contention window optimization, and voice traffic rate design; 5) a head-of-line outage dropping (HOD) scheme is integrated with the AP traffic multiplexing to further improve the MAC channel utilization; 6) performance of the proposed cross-layer analysis and the associated applications are validated by extensive computer simulations.