Energy-aware wireless networking with directional antennas: the case of session-based broadcasting and multicasting

We consider ad hoc wireless networks that use directional antennas and have limited energy resources. To explore quantitatively the advantage offered by the use of directional antennas over the case of omnidirectional antennas, we consider the case of connection-oriented multicast traffic. Building upon our prior work on multicasting algorithms, we introduce two protocols that exploit the use of directional antennas and evaluate their performance, We observe significant improvement with respect to the omnidirectional case, in terms of both energy efficiency and network lifetime. Additionally, we show that further substantial increase in the network's lifetime can be achieved by incorporating a simple measure of a node's residual energy into the node's cost function.     

Data-delay evaluation in integrated wireless networks based on local product-form solutions for voice occupancy

In this paper we consider the evaluation of data-packet delay in wireless integrated voice/data networks. In networks that support voice in the classical circuit-switched fashion, the voice occupancy process satisfies a product-form solution under reasonable modeling assumptions. Although this product-form solution provides an accurate characterization of equilibrium voicetraffic behavior, it does not directly provide a method to evaluate data-packet delay. However, examination of each link separately in a manner that incorporates interaction with the rest of the network permits us to take advantage of the wireless nature of the network and obtain a three-flow characterization of each link, which also satisfies a product-form solution and is hence termed a mini-product-form solution. By matching the values of these flows to the average values obtained from the product-form solution of the entire network, we obtain a three-dimensional Markov chain characterization of the voice occupancy state on the link, which permits a simpler evaluation of data-packet delay. A further reduction is possible by converting the three-dimensional chain to a single-dimensional one. Performance results demonstrate that these models provide satisfactory delay estimates that also appear to be upper bounds on delay.C.M. Barnhart was at the Naval Research Laboratory when this paper was written.     

Comments on “Capture and Retransmission Control in Mobile Radio”

For original paper by Zorzi and Rao, see IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol.12, no.8, p.1289-98 (1994 October)     

Energy-Efficient Broadcast and Multicast Trees in Wireless Networks

The wireless networking environment presents formidable challenges to the study of broadcasting and multicasting problems. In this paper we focus on the problem of multicast tree construction, and we introduce and evaluate algorithms for tree construction in infrastructureless, all-wireless applications. The performance metric used to evaluate broadcast and multicast trees is energy-efficiency. We develop the Broadcast Incremental Power (BIP) algorithm, and adapt it to multicast operation by introducing the Multicast Incremental Power (MIP) algorithm. These algorithms exploit the broadcast nature of the wireless communication environment, and address the need for energy-efficient operation. We demonstrate that our algorithms provide better performance than algorithms that have been developed for the link-based, wired environment.     

Admission-control policies for multihop wireless networks

In this paper, we investigate the admission-control problem for voice traffic in fixed-route circuit-switched wireless networks. We consider coordinate-convex admission-control policies and a blocked-calls-cleared mode of operation, in conjunction with the usual assumptions on the voice process statistics. These conditions result in a product-form stationary distribution for the voice state of the system, which facilitates the evaluation of network performance. However, to determine the optimal policy a large state space must be searched. We develop a recursive procedure to accelerate the evaluation of a large number of different admission-control policies, and a descent-search method to reduce significantly the number of policies that must be evaluated in searching for the optimal one. The numerical examples we present indicate that reduced blocking probability (or increased throughput) can be obtained by administering active admission control. The degree of improvement is highest in moderately overloaded traffic conditions, but it is typically small in low-capacity networks (at all loads). However, in applications where the performance measure associates different revenues or costs with the various call types, considerable improvement can be obtained when admission control is used.     

Discrimination Against Partially Overlapping Interference--Its Effect on Throughput in Frequency-Hopped Multiple Access Channels

In this paper we derive the probability of correct packet reception and the resulting channel throughput achievable in an asynchronous slow-frequency-hopped multiple user channel. Reed-Solomon coding is used to correct errors caused by other-user interference in an otherwise noiseless channel. We analyze and evaluate anM-ary FSK signaling scheme, which permits the discrimination against interfering signals that are present for a sufficiently small fraction of the hop duration, and results in substantial increases in channel throughput over previous models.     

Packet-error probability analysis for unslotted FH-CDMA systemswith error-control coding

In frequency-hopped (FH) code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, a number of users can transmit their packets simultaneously by using quasi-orthogonal FH patterns (codes). In applications where time is unslotted, the symbol-error probability is not the same for each symbol because the number of interfering users varies throughout the packet duration. Packet-error probability for such systems is evaluated by first enumerating all possible interference states and then averaging the packet-error probability associated with each of these states. The use of Reed-Solomon error-control coding is assumed. The computational task for this evaluation is enormous. Therefore, upper bounds and an alternate less-detailed approximate model are developed for easier computation. This approximate model generates results that are very close to those obtained using the authors' first model (1988) for the cases in which those results are computable. The conclusions of this study confirm the observation, originally made elsewhere, that the widely used threshold-based model for other-user interference is not an accurate one     

An exact analysis and performance evaluation of framed ALOHA withcapture

The authors present an exact analysis of framed ALOHA for the case of a finite number of users. This analysis, which is based on the use of a novel combinatorial technique, does not require any restrictive assumptions on channel traffic. This model can accommodate a general model for capture, in which the probability that one packet is received successfully depends on the number of packets involved in the collision. Performance results are presented for both uncontrolled and dynamically controlled systems     

A neural network approach to routing without interference inmultihop radio networks

The issues of routing and scheduling the activation of links in packet radio networks are highly interdependent. The authors consider a form of the problem of routing for the minimization of congestion as a step toward the study of the joint routing-scheduling problem. They formulate this as a combinatorial-optimization problem, and they use Hopfield neural networks (NN) for its solution. The determination of the coefficients in the connection weights is the most critical issue in the design and simulation of Hopfield NN models. They use the method of Lagrange multipliers, which permits these coefficients to vary dynamically along with the evolution of the system state. Extensive software simulation results demonstrate the capability of their approach to determine good sets of routes in large heavily congested networks     

Application of optimization techniques to a nonlinear problem ofcommunication network design with nonlinear constraints

Nonlinear optimization under nonlinear constraints is usually difficult. However, standard ad-hoc search techniques may work successfully in some cases. Here, we consider an augmented Lagrangian formulation, and we develop a "projection heuristic" that "guides" the iterative search toward the optimum. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by applying it to the problem of maximizing a circuit-switched communication network's throughput under quality-of-service (QoS) constraints by means of choosing the input offered load. This problem is useful for "sizing" the network capacity. Performance results using several versions of the algorithm demonstrate its robustness, in terms of its accuracy and convergence properties