Statistical Delay Bound for WirelessHART Networks

In this paper we provide a performance analysis framework for wireless industrial networks by deriving a service curve and a bound on the delay violation probability. For this purpose we use the (min,x) stochastic network calculus as well as a recently presented recursive formula for an end-to-end delay bound of wireless heterogeneous networks. The derived results are mapped to WirelessHART networks used in process automation and were validated via simulations. In addition to WirelessHART, our results can be applied to any wireless network whose physical layer conforms the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, while its MAC protocol incorporates TDMA and channel hopping, like e.g. ISA100.11a or TSCH-based networks. The provided delay analysis is especially useful during the network design phase, offering further research potential towards optimal routing and power management in QoS-constrained wireless industrial networks.Comment: Accepted at PE-WASUN 201

Low-Latency Millimeter-Wave Communications: Traffic Dispersion or Network Densification?

This paper investigates two strategies to reduce the communication delay in future wireless networks: traffic dispersion and network densification. A hybrid scheme that combines these two strategies is also considered. The probabilistic delay and effective capacity are used to evaluate performance. For probabilistic delay, the violation probability of delay, i.e., the probability that the delay exceeds a given tolerance level, is characterized in terms of upper bounds, which are derived by applying stochastic network calculus theory. In addition, to characterize the maximum affordable arrival traffic for mmWave systems, the effective capacity, i.e., the service capability with a given quality-of-service (QoS) requirement, is studied. The derived bounds on the probabilistic delay and effective capacity are validated through simulations. These numerical results show that, for a given average system gain, traffic dispersion, network densification, and the hybrid scheme exhibit different potentials to reduce the end-to-end communication delay. For instance, traffic dispersion outperforms network densification, given high average system gain and arrival rate, while it could be the worst option, otherwise. Furthermore, it is revealed that, increasing the number of independent paths and/or relay density is always beneficial, while the performance gain is related to the arrival rate and average system gain, jointly. Therefore, a proper transmission scheme should be selected to optimize the delay performance, according to the given conditions on arrival traffic and system service capability

On the Reliability of LTE Random Access: Performance Bounds for Machine-to-Machine Burst Resolution Time

Random Access Channel (RACH) has been identified as one of the major bottlenecks for accommodating massive number of machine-to-machine (M2M) users in LTE networks, especially for the case of burst arrival of connection requests. As a consequence, the burst resolution problem has sparked a large number of works in the area, analyzing and optimizing the average performance of RACH. However, the understanding of what are the probabilistic performance limits of RACH is still missing. To address this limitation, in the paper, we investigate the reliability of RACH with access class barring (ACB). We model RACH as a queuing system, and apply stochastic network calculus to derive probabilistic performance bounds for burst resolution time, i.e., the worst case time it takes to connect a burst of M2M devices to the base station. We illustrate the accuracy of the proposed methodology and its potential applications in performance assessment and system dimensioning.Comment: Presented at IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 201

Network on Chip: a New Approach of QoS Metric Modeling Based on Calculus Theory

A NoC is composed by IP cores (Intellectual Propriety) and switches connected among themselves by communication channels. End-to-End Delay (EED) communication is accomplished by the exchange of data among IP cores. Often, the structure of particular messages is not adequate for the communication purposes. This leads to the concept of packet switching. In the context of NoCs, packets are composed by header, payload, and trailer. Packets are divided into small pieces called Flits. It appears of importance, to meet the required performance in NoC hardware resources. It should be specified in an earlier step of the system design. The main attention should be given to the choice of some network parameters such as the physical buffer size in the node. The EED and packet loss are some of the critical QoS metrics. Some real-time and multimedia applications bound up these parameters and require specific hardware resources and particular management approaches in the NoC switch. A traffic contract (SLA, Service Level Agreement) specifies the ability of a network or protocol to give guaranteed performance, throughput or latency bounds based on mutually agreed measures, usually by prioritizing traffic. A defined Quality of Service (QoS) may be required for some types of network real time traffic or multimedia applications. The main goal of this paper is, using the Network on Chip modeling architecture, to define a QoS metric. We focus on the network delay bound and packet losses. This approach is based on the Network Calculus theory, a mathematical model to represent the data flows behavior between IPs interconnected over NoC. We propose an approach of QoS-metric based on QoS-parameter prioritization factors for multi applications-service using calculus model

Backlog and Delay Reasoning in HARQ Systems

Recently, hybrid-automatic-repeat-request (HARQ) systems have been favored in particular state-of-the-art communications systems since they provide the practicality of error detections and corrections aligned with repeat-requests when needed at receivers. The queueing characteristics of these systems have taken considerable focus since the current technology demands data transmissions with a minimum delay provisioning. In this paper, we investigate the effects of physical layer characteristics on data link layer performance in a general class of HARQ systems. Constructing a state transition model that combines queue activity at a transmitter and decoding efficiency at a receiver, we identify the probability of clearing the queue at the transmitter and the packet-loss probability at the receiver. We determine the effective capacity that yields the maximum feasible data arrival rate at the queue under quality-of-service constraints. In addition, we put forward non-asymptotic backlog and delay bounds. Finally, regarding three different HARQ protocols, namely Type-I HARQ, HARQ-chase combining (HARQ-CC) and HARQ-incremental redundancy (HARQ-IR), we show the superiority of HARQ-IR in delay robustness over the others. However, we further observe that the performance gap between HARQ-CC and HARQ-IR is quite negligible in certain cases. The novelty of our paper is a general cross-layer analysis of these systems, considering encoding/decoding in the physical layer and delay aspects in the data-link layer

Service discovery and negotiation with COWS

To provide formal foundations to current (web) services technologies, we put forward using COWS, a process calculus for specifying, combining and analysing services, as a uniform formalism for modelling all the relevant phases of the life cycle of service-oriented applications, such as publication, discovery, negotiation, deployment and execution. In this paper, we show that constraints and operations on them can be smoothly incorporated in COWS, and propose a disciplined way to model multisets of constraints and to manipulate them through appropriate interaction protocols. Therefore, we demonstrate that also QoS requirement specifications and SLA achievements, and the phases of dynamic service discovery and negotiation can be comfortably modelled in COWS. We illustrate our approach through a scenario for a service-based web hosting provider

How user throughput depends on the traffic demand in large cellular networks

Little's law allows to express the mean user throughput in any region of the network as the ratio of the mean traffic demand to the steady-state mean number of users in this region. Corresponding statistics are usually collected in operational networks for each cell. Using ergodic arguments and Palm theoretic formalism, we show that the global mean user throughput in the network is equal to the ratio of these two means in the steady state of the "typical cell". Here, both means account for double averaging: over time and network geometry, and can be related to the per-surface traffic demand, base-station density and the spatial distribution of the SINR. This latter accounts for network irregularities, shadowing and idling cells via cell-load equations. We validate our approach comparing analytical and simulation results for Poisson network model to real-network cell-measurements