QoS-aware adaptation for satellite multimedia broadcasting via hierarchical packet scheduling

With the unique broadcast nature and ubiquitous coverage of satellite networks, the synergy between satellite and terrestrial networks provides opportunities for delivering wideband services to a wide range of audiences over extensive geographical areas. This article concerns the optimization techniques pertinent to packet scheduling to facilitate multimedia content delivery over the satellite with a return channel via a terrestrial network. We propose a novel hierarchical packet scheduling scheme that allocates the resources at different parts of the network in response to network dynamics and link variations while under the system power/resource constraints. Simulations prove that the HPS scheme can effectively improve the end-to-end performance and resource utilization with desirable scalability and fairness features.     

Mobile ad hoc networking: imperatives and challenges

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self-organize into arbitrary and temporary, “ad-hoc” network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internetwork in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyperlan are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of this dynamic field. It first explains the important role that mobile ad hoc networks play in the evolution of future wireless technologies. Then, it reviews the latest research activities in these areas, including a summary of MANET’s characteristics, capabilities, applications, and design constraints. The paper concludes by presenting a set of challenges and problems requiring further research in the future.     

Slot Routing as a Solution for Optically Transparent Scalable WDM Wide Area Networks*

All-optical Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) backbones are believed to be a fundamental component in future high speed networks. Currently, the most pursued approach for Wide Area Networks (WANs) is wavelength routing, in which communication circuits are established between node pairs by means of lightpaths (paths of light) spanning one or more fiber-optic links. This approach has, however, two drawbacks. Since the number of wavelengths and links in a network is finite, not all node pairs can be connected via a dedicated lightpath directly. Consequently, some node pairs will communicate using a concatenation of lightpaths, which requires electronic switching of in transit information, loosing the advantages of optical transparency. Secondly, typically some form of (electronic) traffic grooming will be necessary to make efficient use of the fixed lightpath capacity. This paper proposes to design all-optical WANs using a novel approach, called photonic slot routing. With photonic slot routing, entire slots, each carrying multiple packets on distinct wavelengths, are switched transparently and individually, using available fast and wavelength non-sensitive devices. The advantage of using photonic slot routing is threefold. All node pairs in the network communicate all-optically. Traffic aggregation necessary to efficiently use the capacity of the wavelength channels is optically achieved. The solution is practical as it is based on proven optical technologies. In addition, through the use of wavelength non-sensitive devices the proposed WAN design yields intrinsic scalability in the number of wavelengths.     

A survey of quality of service in IEEE 802.11 networks

Developed as a simple and cost-effective wireless technology for best effort services, IEEE 802.11 has gained popularity at an unprecedented rate. However, due to the lack of built-in quality of service support, IEEE 802.11 experiences serious challenges in meeting the demands of multimedia services and applications. This article surveys 802.11 QoS schemes, including service differentiation in the MAC layer, admission control and bandwidth reservation in MAC and higher layers, and link adaptation in the physical layer, designed to meet these challenges by providing the necessary enhancements for the required QoS. Furthermore, the article addresses issues that arise when end-to-end QoS has to be guaranteed in today's pervasive heterogeneous wired-cum-wireless networks. Among these challenges, protocol interoperability, multihop scheduling, full mobility support, and seamless vertical handoff among multiple mobile/wireless interfaces are specifically addressed.     

A multibus train communication (AMTRAC) architecture for high-speedfiber optic networks

A multibus train (ordered demand assignment) communication architecture, using the AMTRAC protocol (for efficient utilization of fiber-optic-based very-high-speed networks) is presented. Taking advantage of the emerging WDM (wavelength-division multiplexing) and FDM (frequency-division multiplexing) technologies, the proposed solution introduces a coordinated multichannel control combining the performance advantages of two known approaches for high-speed communication: multichannel and train protocols. As a result an AMTRAC-based high-speed network achieves channel utilization significantly higher than previous approaches. For a network consisting of N stations, with propagation delay to packet transmission time ratio given by a, the AMTRAC architecture reaches a capacity of 1/(1+a/N ²)     

Analysis of multiple-bus synchronous and asynchronous communication systems

We consider a multi-user distributed system in which nodes are connected to multiple-buses using partially duplicated bus interfaces. We study the effects of destination conflicts and bus synchronization on the system performance and show how, for a given system bus duplication can be chosen to provide guaranteed delays while increasing the interconnection system reliability. Alternative system configurations are analyzed and compared using exact and approximate Markovian models. The presented results can be used for design and optimization of high-availability distributed systems, such as loosely coupled cluster systems or backend storage networks.     

Channel allocation protocols in frequency-time controlled highspeed networks

In conventional high-speed systems, the high ratio between the end-to-end propagation delay and the message transmission time severely restricts the system performance. Thus, the increase in channel bandwidth may be accompanied by only a marginal increase in actual system capacity. A combined frequency-time division-based control of the high-speed channel that significantly reduces this problem is proposed. The design of protocols subject to the unique channel control penalties of the resulting multichannel system is considered. The allocation of channels on a demand assignment basis is hindered in the multichannel configuration by the time penalty involved in locating an idle channel and by practical limitations on the transmit/receive multichannels mode interface. A new class of fixed allocation protocols is introduced in which the channel access is obtained without the aforementioned penalties. The protocols build on the allocation of source and destination oriented transmission rights, taking into account the implementation aspects of multichannel networks. It is shown that this class of protocols covers the whole range of random-access to fixed-channel-access control policies. An analytic approach for a uniform analytic treatment is introduced, showing the potential for a significant improvement in the system capacity and the average message delay     

Overflow control for UMTS high-speed downlink packet access

This paper proposes overflow control schemes to support high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) mechanism in the universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS). To access the UMTS services, a user equipment (UE) communicates with all cells (base stations) in an active set. However, multiple links between the UE and the cells in the active set may reduce the transmission speed due to interference. Third-Generation Partnership Project specification TR 25.950 proposes HSDPA. In this mechanism, the UE only selects one cell (referred to as the serving cell) in the active set for high-speed downlink transmission. In HSDPA, the radio network controller sends the packet frames to the cells in the active set. For the serving cell, the packet frames are forwarded to the UE. On the other hand, every nonserving cell in the active set queues the packet frames in a buffer. If the link quality between the serving cell and the UE degrades below some threshold, the UE selects the best cell in the active set as the new serving cell. Since the nonserving cells do not send packet frames to the UE, their buffers may overflow. In this paper, we propose schemes to address the buffer overflow issue. Our schemes guarantee that when the buffer of a nonserving cell is full, the previously received packet frames in the buffer can be safely dropped, and after the UE has switched wireless link to the new serving cell, no packet frames are lost.     

Wavelength converter placement under different RWA algorithms in wavelength-routed all-optical networks

Sparse wavelength conversion and appropriate routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithms are the two key factors in improving the blocking performance in wavelength-routed all-optical networks. It has been shown that the optimal placement of a limited number of wavelength converters in an arbitrary mesh network is an NP-complete problem. There have been various heuristic algorithms proposed in the literature, in which most of them assume that a static routing and random-wavelength assignment RWA algorithm is employed. However, the existing work shows that fixed-alternate routing and dynamic routing RWA algorithms can achieve much better blocking performance. Our study further demonstrates that the wavelength converter placement and RWA algorithms are closely related in the sense that a well-designed wavelength converter placement mechanism for a particular RWA algorithm might not work well with a different RWA algorithm. Therefore, the wavelength converter placement and the RWA have to be considered jointly. The objective of this paper is to investigate the wavelength converter placement problem under the fixed-alternate routing (FAR) algorithm and least-loaded routing (LLR) algorithm. Under the FAR algorithm, we propose a heuristic algorithm called minimum blocking probability first for wavelength converter placement. Under the LLR algorithm, we propose another heuristic algorithm called weighted maximum segment length. The objective of the converter placement algorithms is to minimize the overall blocking probability. Extensive simulation studies have been carried out over three typical mesh networks, including the 14-node NSFNET, 19-node EON, and 38-node CTNET. We observe that the proposed algorithms not only outperform existing wavelength converter placement algorithms by a large margin, but they also can achieve almost the same performance compared with full wavelength conversion under the same RWA algorithm.     

Wireless Quality-of-Service support

Guest Editorial

Wireless Quality-of-Service support