Burst Mode Bandwidth Allocation for Real-Time Messages in IEEE 802.12 Networks

In IEEE 802.12 network, a repeater arbitrates among transmission requests on a round robin basis. A node can transmit a packet only when it is granted by the repeater. Recently, the IEEE 802.12 Committee approved a burst mode in which a node can transmit multiple packets per grant. In burst mode a bandwidth, or the number of packets per grant should be allocated taking into account the timing constraints of real-time messages. This paper proposes bandwidth allocation algorithms based on the burst mode to guarantee the deadlines of periodic real-time messages. Once the bandwidth of each node is derived from the lengths and deadlines of periodic messages, a node is allowed to transmit packets up to the allocated bandwidth per grant. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms provide much higher guarantee ratio and graceful degradation for heavy network load, compared with the existing approaches