Adaptive Power Saving Mechanisms for DCF in IEEE 802.11

Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) is the basis of IEEE 802.11 MAC sublayer. To improve energy efficiency, IEEE 802.11 has specified power saving mechanism (PSM) for DCF. However, the performance of PSM degrades seriously when load is heavy. In this paper we first analyze the reason of performance degradation, and then propose two adaptive mechanisms: PSM+ and fairPSM+. Numerous simulation results have shown that these two mechanisms can achieve high performance with heavy load and still get the same performance as PSM when load is light.Shihong Zou was born in 1978. He received his Bacchelor of Engineering degree in Computer Engineering from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (Nanjing, China) in 1999, and his Ph.D. degree in communication and information systems from Beijng University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in 2004. He is currently a lecturer in BUPT. His research interests include IP QoS, WLAN, mobile ad hoc networks and network security.Haitao Wu was born in 1976. He received his Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in Communication Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in 1998, and his Ph.D. degree in communication and information systems from BUPT in 2003. He is currently a Post-doctor in Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), wireless and networking group. His research interests include IP QoS, TCP/IP, wireless networks and peer-to-peer networks.Shiduan Cheng graduated in communication engineering at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in 1963. Since then she has been working at BUPT. From 1984 to 1987 and in 1994 she twice joined Alcatel Bell, Belgium as a visiting scholar, where she was involved in R&D work on ISDN and B-ISDN networks and systems. She became vice dean of the computer department of BUPT in 1987. From 1992 to 1999 she was the director of The National Key Laboratory of Switching Technology and Telecommunication Networks of BUPT. In the same duration she was also the head of The Switching and Networking Expert Group in 863 program, a national high-tech R&D plan organized by The Ministry of Science and Technology of China. She has published more than 100 papers and several books in the field of telecommunications. She is currently the vise director of Standing Committee of Science of BUPT. Her research interests cover ISDN, ATM, TCP/IP, switching software, protocol engineering, traffic engineering, network performance, QoS, security and survivability. Currently she is working on QoS control, measurement and management for the next generation Internet.     

The IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function in Small-Scale Ad-Hoc Wireless LANs

The IEEE 802.11 standards for wireless local area networks define how the stations of an ad-hoc wireless network coordinate in order to share the medium efficiently. This work investigates the performance of such a network by considering the two different access mechanisms proposed in these standards. The IEEE 802.11 access mechanisms are based on the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol using a binary slotted exponential backoff mechanism. The basic CSMA/CA mechanism uses an acknowledgment message at the end of each transmitted packet, whereas the request to send/clear to send (RTS/CTS) CSMA/CA mechanism also uses a RTS/CTS message exchange before transmitting a packet. In this work, we analyze these two access mechanisms in terms of throughput and delay. Extensive numerical results are presented to highlight the characteristics of each access mechanism and to define the dependence of each mechanism on the backoff procedure parameters.     

IEEE802.11无线局域网标准

介绍了IEEE802.11无线局域网技术规范.给出了ISM频段、扩频技术的背景及各国相应的标准、规范.描述了允许可证2.4GHzISM频段的直接序列扩频技术及IEEE802.11协议规范。     

Dynamic Data Rate and Transmit Power Adjustment in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs

In this paper a novel link adaptation algorithm is proposed that is capable of adjusting the transmit power level and the data rate jointly to the radio channel conditions. The proposed method relies solely on link quality information available at the transmitter by employing the reception or non-reception of the acknowledgment frames as a measure of the channel quality with respect to the power level and data rate. The method is fully compatible with the 802.11 wireless LAN standard. In contrast to many other proposals, it neither relies on the RTS/CTS protocol nor requires a feedback channel to transmit link-quality estimates from the receiver to the transmitter. Different strategies for optimizing the data rate and power level are given. These depend on the scenarios considered, the number of active stations, and the service requirements. The two main strategies are either to drive the system towards the highest possible data rate and adjust the rate and power levels accordingly (“high-performance” mode) or to focus on power saving, possibly trading this for other performance criteria such as throughput or delay performance (“low-power” mode). Other special cases, such as power or rate only adaptation, are also discussed. It can be shown that in most cases the best choice for achieving low transfer times, maximizing throughput, and alleviating the hidden terminal problem is to transmit at the highest possible rates and with high power levels. This “high-performance” mode of operation also minimizes the transmission times, which in turn maximizes the time for putting idling components into a sleep mode, thereby minimizing the overall power consumption.     

A Centralized MAC-Level Admission Control Algorithm for Traffic Stream Services in IEEE 802.11e Wireless LANs

The admission control algorithm that can be performed at the MAC (Medium Access Control) layer in a real-time is proposed for the decision for accepting or rejecting the requests for adding traffic streams to an IEEE 802.11e wireless LAN (Local Area Network). In numerical examples, we apply the proposed admission control algorithm to VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) traffic streams, and obtain the maximum numbers of VOIP traffic streams that can be admitted to IEEE 802.11a/e, IEEE 802.11b/e and IEEE 802.11g/e wireless LANs for various delay requirements.     

A Novel Scheduled Power Saving Mechanism for 802.11 Wireless LANs

Power conservation is a general concern for mobile computing and communication. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the current 802.11 power saving mechanism (unscheduled PSM) and identify that background network traffic can have a significant impact on the power consumption of mobile stations. To improve power efficiency, a novel scheduled PSM protocol based on time slicing is proposed in this paper. The protocol adopts the mechanism of time division, schedules the access point to deliver pending data at designated time slices, and adaptively adjusts the power state of the mobile stations. The proposed scheme is near theoretical optimal for power saving. It greatly reduces the effect of background traffic, minimizes the station idle time, and maximizes its energy utilization. Comprehensive analysis and simulations are conducted to evaluate the new protocol. The results show that the new protocol provides significant energy saving over the unscheduled PSM, particularly in circumstances where multiple traffic streams coexist in a network. Moreover, it achieves the saving at the cost of only a slight degradation of the one-way-delay performance.     

Robust SuperPoll with Chaining Protocol for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs in Support of Multimedia Applications

Design of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) needs to take into consideration the limited bandwidth available in the ISM band along with the noisy characteristics of the wireless environment and hidden terminal effects. In this paper we propose an enhancement for IEEE 802.11 standard that improves the WLAN support for multimedia applications. In the IEEE 802.11 PCF polling based protocol designed for multimedia applications support, the Point Coordinator (PC) polls each station in the Basic Service Area (BSA) individually. In the proposed SuperPoll approach the PC broadcasts at the beginning of the contention free period a SuperPoll, i.e., a message that includes the list of stations that will be polled during the current period. To improve the reliability of the polling based approach in a noisy environment, we propose to use a chaining mechanism in which each packet resends in its turn the SuperPoll message appended to its packet. We provide performance measurements of the proposed method in terms of channel efficiency and channel access time for multimedia applications that use the contention free period of IEEE 802.11 PCF. We notice that for noisy channels, the proposed method provides a dramatic throughput increase and delay decrease when compared with the Single Poll mechanism used in IEEE 802.11 PCF, thus providing better support for multimedia applications.     

IEEE802.11无线网络中一种新的切换技术

作为当前无线局域网的主流标准,IEEE802.11网络提供了种类繁多的服务.然而,由于无线网络的移动性本质,切换技术成为IEEES02.11网络的关键技术.对IEEE802.11无线网络中现有的切换技术进行了研究,分析了可行的改进方向,并实现了一种改进的切换方案.     

基于IEEE802.11协议的WLAN节省能耗的策略

在WLAN中移动终端设备的电池寿命是一个关键问题.文章概述了基于IEEE802.11协议的WLAN节省能耗的策略,并通过对IEEE802.11MAC协议层节能机制的分析提出一种改进的轮询方案.该方案能克服IEEE802.11在PSM工作模式下,当无线网络流量负载较重时不能显著降低能耗的缺点.     

Performance Evaluation,System Design and Network Deployment of IEEE 802.11

This paper presents a system design technique for the IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) considering the significant parameters namely coverage, cell/frequency planning, interference, power management and data rate. The effect of the parameters on the performance of IEEE 802.11 in terms of throughput has been discussed using measurement and numerical results.These results and concepts are extremely important not only for the system design and deployment of IEEE 802.11 WLANs but also for other indoor wireless communications systems.     

Adaptive QoS Management for IEEE 802.11 Future Wireless ISPs

Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) are expected to be the new generation of access providers using the emerging IEEE 802.11 technology. Face to the high competition of providing network services, the WISP have to offer the best service to the users. For this purpose, the WISP networks' managers need to provide Quality of Service (QoS) with a minimum cost in their wireless networks. The current link layer IEEE 802.11b provides fair sharing of the radio resource with no service differentiation mechanism; similarly to the Internet best effort service. However, the ongoing standard IEEE 802.11e should implement a priority mechanism at the link layer to differentiate the users' traffic. In order to overcome the lack of differentiated mechanism in the current link layer IEEE 802.11b, hence controlling the utilization of the scarce radio resource, we propose in this article to deploy Diffserv architecture coupled with an adaptive provisioning of QoS to provide better services to the users with minimum WISP cost and improve the utilization of the radio resource. Compliant with the current and future IEEE 802.11 link layer, the proposed adaptive QoS provisioning mechanism reacts to the radio resource fluctuation and improves the number of accepted clients in the IEEE 802.11 wireless cells based on the WISP business policies. The network layer differentiation provided by the Diffserv architecture intends to control the concurrent access of the traffic to the scarce radio resources at the IP layer of the mobile hosts for the uplink traffic on one hand, and at the IP layer of the base stations for the downlink traffic on the other hand.     

Adaptive coordination function for IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs

Multiple access control (MAC) protocols play a significant role in wireless LANs. The IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol specifies two coordination functions that are Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and Point Coordination Function (PCF). While both DCF and PCF are available in a wireless cell, we propose a novel access mechanism called Adaptive Coordination Function (ACF) to support various classes of traffic. The ACF superframe comprises two periods, one TDMA period designed for real-time traffic and followed by an adaptive period which adaptively employs DCF or PCF to support non-real-time traffic. In this paper, we apply the theory of M/G/1 queues to analyze the performance of adaptive period in terms of queuing delay, end-to-end delay, and saturation throughput. With our analytic model, DCF or PCF can be invoked appropriately according to the number of stations, packet arrival rate, packet payload size, and effective channel bit rate. Analytical results are derived for an extensive throughput and delay performance evaluation of both DCF and PCF.     

Distributed Proportional Fair Scheduling for IEEE802.11 Wireless LANs

In the time varying wireless channel, opportunistic scheduling is one of the important techniques to achieving the rich diversities inherent in wireless communications. However, most existing scheduling schemes require centralized scheduling and little work has been done on developing distributed algorithms The proportional fair scheduling is one of the representative opportunistic scheduling for centralized networks. In this paper, we propose distributed proportional fair scheduling (DPFS) scheme for wireless LAN network. In the proposed DPFS scheme, each receiver estimates channel condition and calculates independently its own priority with probabilistic manner, which can reduce excessive probing overhead required to gather the channel conditions of all receivers. We evaluate the proposed DPFS using extensive simulation and simulation results show that DPFS obtains higher network throughput than conventional scheduling schemes while maintaining fairness among users.     

Throughput Analysis and Admission Control for IEEE 802.11a

We propose a new Markov model for the distributed coordination function (DCF) of IEEE 802.11. The model incorporates carrier sense, non-saturated traffic and SNR, for both basic and RTS/CTS access mechanisms. Analysis of the model shows that the throughput first increases, and then decreases with the number of active stations, suggesting the need for an admission control mechanism.We introduce such a mechanism, which tries to maximize the throughput while maintaining a fair allocation. The maximum achievable throughput is tracked by the mechanism as the number of active stations increases. An extensive performance analysis shows that the mechanism provides significant improvements.Mustafa Ergen received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU) and was the METU Valedictorian in 2000. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering in 2002 and 2004, the MOT certificate of HAAS Business School in 2003, and the M.A. degree in International and Area Studies in 2004 from the University of California, Berkeley.Dr. Ergen has been conducting research in wireless communication networks with an emphasis on sensor networks, wireless LAN and OFDM systems and is the author of many works in the field, including the book (with A.R.S. Bahai and B.R. Saltzberg) Multi-Carrier Digital Communications: Theory and Applications of OFDM (New York: Springer, 2004).He is National Semiconductor Post Doctoral Fellow and was awarded eight times Bulent Kerim Altay Award by department of electrical engineering in METU and received Best Student Paper Award in IEEE ISCC 2003 and has an invited paper in IEEE GLOBECOM CAMAD 200.Pravin Varaiya is Nortel Networks Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1975 to 1992, he was also Professor of Economics at Berkeley. His research is concerned with communication networks, transportation, and hybrid systems. He has taught at MIT and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Varaiya has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Miller Research Professorship. He received an Honorary Doctorate from L’Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, and the Field Medal of the IEEE Control Systems Society. He is a Fellow of IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is on the editorial board of several journals, including “Discrete Event Dynamical Systems” and “Transportation Research-C.” He has co-authored three books and more than 250 technical papers. The second edition of “High-Performance Communication Networks” (with Jean Walrand) was published by Morgan-Kaufmann in 2000. “Structure and interpretation of signals and systems” (with Edward Lee) was published in 2002 by Addison-Wesley.     

IEEE 802.11中MAC子层切换过程分析

IEEE 802．11中MAC运行的关键是其切换功能，即当一个移动节点将它的联结从一个接入点转移到另一个接入点的过程。介绍了关于链接层中这种切换过程的实验方法，对延迟的多种原因进行分析，指出了MAC子层的功能探测是全部切换延迟的主要原因。     

IEEE802.11b协议在户外无线网络传输的应用与改进

文章针对IEEE802．11b协议在户外传输中存在的问题进行研究,通过对CSMA／CA协议的访问流程进行修改,利用时间片选择的随机性,降低不同站点发送数据的冲突概率,有效解决了“隐藏结点”和“低数据吞吐量”等问题。从而提高了在户外现场监控设备图象传输的效率,系统已经成功应用于油田的无人值守监控系统。     

IEEE802．11网络VoIP容量估算方法

传统的IEEE802．11无线局域网环境下承栽VolP（Voice over IP）语音业务时,QoS和接入容量都严重受损,成为制约VoWLAN发展的瓶颈。文章以XG729编码的语音包在IEEE802．11b长PPDU模式传输的帧为例,通过分析VoIP包成帧效率、IEEE802．11b成帧效率和DCF协议效率,得到饱和条件下归一化系统吞吐率;同时计算出IEEE802．11a／b协议下VoIP语音理论传输容量,为进一步提升IEEE802．11无线局域网环境下语音传输能力研究提供基础。     

无线局域网在电力系统中的应用方案设计

简单介绍了无线局域网技术及其发展情况，给出了电力系统中的典型应用方案。以无线局域网技术为依托，结合最新的网络技术、VOIP语音技术及接口转换技术，可以提供一套全新的变电站、供电所通信通道整体解决方案，满足电力系统的话音、数据、图像及计算机联网的需求。     

IEEE 802.11在无线自组网中的应用研究

深入分析了IEEE 802.11 DCF机制应用于无线自组网存在的固有缺陷及潜在原因,并阐明了数据流竞争、物理层机制对MAC协议性能的影响。IEEE 802.11 DCF是针对全连通adhoc网络结构设计的,分析表明,要在实际的多跳无线自组网中应用还存在很多问题需要解决。在此基础上提出了将IEEE 802.11有效应用于多跳无线自组网的进一步研究方向。     

DAWL: A Delayed-ACK Scheme for MAC-Level Performance Enhancement of Wireless LANs

The IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol provides a reliable link layer using Stop & Wait ARQ. The cost for high reliability is the overhead due to acknowledgement packets in the direction opposite to the actual data flow. In this paper, the design of a new protocol as an enhancement of IEEE 802.11 is proposed, with the aim of reducing supplementary traffic overhead and increasing the bandwidth available for actual data transmission. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated through comparison with IEEE 802.11 as well as with a SSCOP-based protocol. Results underline significant advantages of the proposed protocol against existing ones, thus confirming the value and potentiality of the approach.Dzmitry Kliazovich received his Masters degree in telecommunication science from Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics in 2002. He is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree in University of Trento, Italy. His main research interest lies in wireless networking field with a focus on performance optimization and cross-layer design.Fabrizio Granelli was born in Genoa in 1972. He received the “Laurea” (M.Sc.) degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 1997, with a thesis on video coding, awarded with the TELECOM Italy prize, and the Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science from the same university in 2001. Since 2000 he is carrying on his teaching activity as Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Information and Communication Technologies (DIT) of the University of Trento (Italy) within the B.Sc. and M.Sc. Degrees in Telecommunications Engineering.The research interests of Dr. Granelli are mainly focused on networking, with particular attention to network modeling and performance evaluation, wireless networks, access control, and next-generation telecommunication networks.He is author of more than 30 refereed papers, published in several international journals and conferences.Dr. Granelli is member of the IEEE Committee on “Communication Systems Integration and Modeling” (CSIM) and of the Technical Programme Committee of the “QoS and Performance Evaluation Symposium” of the International Conference on Communications (ICC 2003 and ICC 2004).