A fair access mechanism based on TXOP in IEEE 802.11e wireless networks

IEEE 802.11e is an extension of IEEE 802.11 that provides Quality of Service (QoS) for the applications with different service requirements. This standard makes use of several parameters such as contention window; inter frame space time and transmission opportunity to create service differentiation in the network. Transmission opportunity (TXOP), that is the focus point of this paper, is the time interval, during which a station is allowed to transmit packets without any contention. As the fixed amounts of TXOPs are allocated to different stations, unfairness appears in the network. And when users with different data rates exist, IEEE 802.11e WLANs face the lack of fairness in the network. Because the higher data rate stations transfer more data than the lower rate ones. Several mechanisms have been proposed to solve this problem by generating new TXOPs adaptive to the network's traffic condition. In this paper, some proposed mechanisms are evaluated and according to their evaluated strengths and weaknesses, a new mechanism is proposed for TXOP determination in IEEE 802.11e wireless networks. Our new algorithm considers data rate, channel error rate and data packet lengths to calculate adaptive TXOPs for the stations. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm leads to better fairness and also higher throughput and lower delays in the network.

Spectrum Utilization and Congestion of IEEE 802.11 Networks in the 2.4 GHz ISM Band

Wi-Fi technology, plays a major role in society thanks to its widespread availability, ease of use and low cost. To assure its long term viability in terms of capacity and ability to share the spectrum efficiently, it is of paramount to study the spectrum utilization and congestion mechanisms in live environments. In this paper the service level in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is investigated with focus on todays IEEE 802.11 WLAN systems with support for the 802.11e extension. Here service level means the overall Quality of Service (QoS), i.e. can all devices fulfill their communication needs? A crosslayer approach is used, since the service level can be measured at several levels of the protocol stack. The focus is on monitoring at both the Physical (PHY) and the Medium Access Control (MAC) link layer simultaneously by performing respectively power measurements with a spectrum analyzer to assess spectrum utilization and packet sniffing to measure the congestion. Compared to traditional QoS analysis in 802.11 networks, packet sniffing allows to study the occurring congestion mechanisms more thoroughly. The monitoring is applied for the following two cases. First the influence of interference between WLAN networks sharing the same radio channel is investigated in a controlled environment. It turns out that retry rate, Clear-ToSend (CTS), Request-To-Send (RTS) and (Block) Acknowledgment (ACK) frames can be used to identify congestion, whereas the spectrum analyzer is employed to identify the source of interference. Secondly, live measurements are performed at three locations to identify this type of interference in real-live situations. Results show inefficient use of the wireless medium in certain scenarios, due to a large portion of management and control frames compared to data content frames (i.e. only 21% of the frames is identified as data frames)

An Experimental Investigation of Real-time Video Transmission over IEEE 802.11e WLAN Networks using TXOP

Real-time multimedia streaming applications require a strict bounded end-to-end delay and are considered to be bursty as each video frame is typically transmitted as a burst of packets. In this paper we show how the distribution of video frame sizes can be used to efficiently dimension the IEEE 802.11e TXOP limit parameter to efficiently deal with this burstiness in order to enhance the transmission of real-time video streaming services. Through experimental investigation, we show that by using the mean video frame size to dimension the TXOP limit parameter, the transmission delay for the video frame is reduced by 67% under heavily loaded conditions. Other techniques investigated in this paper include applying the TXOP facility separately to each of the constituent I, P, and B video frame types

Advanced Wireless LAN

The past two decades have witnessed starling advances in wireless LAN technologies that were stimulated by its increasing popularity in the home due to ease of installation, and in commercial complexes offering wireless access to their customers. This book presents some of the latest development status of wireless LAN, covering the topics on physical layer, MAC layer, QoS and systems. It provides an opportunity for both practitioners and researchers to explore the problems that arise in the rapidly developed technologies in wireless LAN

Design and optimization of QoS-based medium access control protocols for next-generation wireless LANs

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.In recent years, there have been tremendous advances in wireless & mobile communications, including wireless radio techniques, networking protocols, and mobile devices. It is expected that different broadband wireless access technologies, e.g., WiFi (IEEE 802.11) and WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) will coexist in the future. In the meantime, multimedia applications have experienced an explosive growth with increasing user demands. Nowadays, people expect to receive high-speed video, audio, voice and web services even when being mobile. The key question that needs to be answered, then, is how do we ensure that users always have the "best" network performance with the "lowest" costs in such complicated situations? The latest IEEE 802.11n standards attains rates of more than 100 Mbps by introducing innovative enhancements at the PHY and MAC layer, e.g. MIMO and Frame Aggregation, respectively. However, in this thesis we demonstrate that frame aggregation's performance adheres due to the EDCA scheduler's priority mechanism and consequently resulting in the network's poor overall performance. Short waiting times for high priority flows into the aggregation queue resolves to poor channel utilization. A Delayed Channel Access algorithm was designed to intentionally postpone the channel access procedure so that the number of packets in a formed frame can be increased and so will the network's overall performance. However, in some cases, the DCA algorithm has a negative impact on the applications that utilize the TCP protocol, especially the when small TCP window sizes are engaged. So, the TCP process starts to refrain from sending data due to delayed acknowledgements and the overall throughput drops. In this thesis, we address the above issues by firstly demonstrating the potential performance benefits of frame aggregation over the next generation wireless networks. The efficiency and behaviour of frame aggregation within a single queue, are mathematically analysed with the aid of a M=G[a;b]=1=K model. Results show that a trade-off choice has to be taken into account over minimizing the waiting time or maximizing utilization. We also point out that there isn't an optimum batch collection rule which can be assumed as generally valid but individual cases have to be considered separately. Secondly, we demonstrate through extensive simulations that by introducing a method, the DCA algorithm, which dynamically determines and adapts batch collections based upon the traffic's characteristics, QoS requirements and server's maximum capacity, also improves e ciency. Thirdly, it is important to understand the behaviour of the TCP ows over the WLAN and the influence that DCA has over the degrading performance of the TCP protocol. We investigate the cause of the problem and provide the foundations of designing and implementing possible solutions. Fourthly, we introduce two innovative proposals, one amendment and one extension to the original DCA algorithm, called Adaptive DCA and Selective DCA, respectively. Both solutions have been implemented in OPNET and extensive simulation runs over a wide set of scenarios show their effectiveness over the network's overall performance, each in its own way.This study was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

A quality of service architecture for WLAN-wired networks to enhance multimedia support

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-84).The use of WLAN for the provision of IP multimedia services faces a number of challenges which include quality of service (QoS). Because WLAN users access multimedia services usually over a wired backbone, attention must be paid to QoS over the integrated WLAN-wired network. This research focuses on the provision of QoS to WLAN users accessing multimedia services over a wired backbone. In this thesis, the IEEE 802.11-2007 enhanced data channel access (EDCA) mechanism is used to provide prioritized QoS on the WLAN media access control (MAC) layer, while weighted round robin (WRR) queue scheduling is used to provide prioritized QoS at the IP layer. The inter-working of the EDCA scheme in the WLAN and the WRR scheduling scheme in the wired network provides end-to-end QoS on a WLAN-wired IP network. A mapping module is introduced to enable the inter-working of the EDCA and WRR mechanisms

A differentiated Services Architecture for Quality of Service Provisioning in Wireless Local Area Networks

Currently the issue of Quality of Service (QoS) is a major problem in IP networks due to the growth in multimedia traffic (e.g. voice and video applications) and therefore many mechanisms like IntServ, DiffServ, etc. have been proposed. Since the IEEE 802.11b (or Wi-Fi) standard was approved in 1999, it has gained in popularity to become the leading Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology with millions of such networks deployed worldwide. Wireless networks have a limited capacity (11 Mbits/s in the case of Wi-Fi networks) owing to the limited amount of frequency spectrum available. At any given time there may be a large number of users contending for access which results in the bandwidth available to each user being severely limited. Moreover, the system does not differentiate between traffic types which means that all traffic, regardless of its importance or priority, experiences the same QoS. An important network application requiring QoS guarantees is the provision of time-bounded services, such as voice over IP and video streaming, where the combination of packet delay, jitter and packet loss will impact on the perceived QoS. Consequently this has led to a large amount of research work focussing mainly on QoS enhancement schemes for the 802.11 MAC mechanism. The Task Group E of the IEEE 802.11 working group has been developing an extension to the Wi-Fi standard that proposes to make changes to the MAC mechanism to support applications with QoS requirements. The 802.11e QoS standard is currently undergoing final revisions before approval expected sometime in 2004. As 802.11e WLAN equipment is not yet available, performance reports can only be based on simulation. The objective of this thesis was to develop a computer simulator that implements the upcoming IEEE 802.11e standard and to use this simulator to evaluate the QoS performance enhancement potential of 802.11e. This thesis discusses the QoS facilities, analyses the MAC protocol enhancements and compares them with the original 802.11 standard. The issue of QoS provisioning is primarily concerned with providing predictable performance guarantees with regard to throughput, packet delay, jitter and packet loss. The simulated results indicate that the proposed QoS enhancements to the MAC will considerably improve QoS performance in 802.11b WLANs. However, in order for the proposed 802.11e QoS mechanism to be effective the 802.11e parameters will need to be continually adjusted in order to ensure QoS guarantees are fulfilled for all traffic loads

Wireless and mobile UMTS networks simulation using QoS

Diplomová práce je psána v angličtině a věnuje se standardu IEEE 802.11e, obsahujícím podporu kvality služeb a taky pojednává o kvalitě služeb QoS (Quality of Service) v systému UMTS. Rozebrány jsou hlavní teoretické pilíře daných mechanizmů a praktická část se zabývá simulacemi síťových modelů. Standard 802.11e objasňuje propojení vrstev na fyzické úrovni a zmiňuje metody přístupu k přenosovému médiu DCF, PCF, HCF, EDCA, HCCA. Dále přístupové kategorie a také odlišnosti v MAC podvrstvě, je rozebrána problematika při přenosu prioritních dat na základě identifikátorů. Vzpomenuta je taky struktura formátu rámce a techniky s rozprostřeným spektrem. Časové limity pro doručení prioritních dat a požadavky kladené na tyto data je možné snadno srovnat v tabulkách. Problematika kvality služeb je velice komplexní záležitost, nicméně jsou rozebrány základní klíčové parametry jako koncové zpoždění, jitter, zahazování dat, propustnost, velikost front a hodnota MOS. Zmíněny jsou i mechanizmy integrovaných RSVP a diferencovaných služeb pro zajištění QoS. U systému třetí generace UMTS je objasněna architektura a společná kooperace se systémem GSM. Vzájemné propojení obou sítí je zřejmé z obrázků. Zvýšený zájem je věnován vrstvovému modelu a funkcím RRM pro zajištění QoS. Objasněny jsou různé druhy předávání hovorů, tzv. Handover Control a funkce Admission Control. Rozebrány jsou jednotlivé třídy provozu Conversational, Streaming, Interactive a Background. Praktická část se odehrává v simulačním prostředí programu OPNET Modeler. Byly vytvořeny dva modely s různými scénáři pro srovnání zajištění QoS. Model objasňující princip standardu IEEE 802.11e obsahuje dvě bezdrátové sítě s přístupovými body a stanicemi, na kterých jsou sledovány simulace s různým zatížením přenášených dat. Pro porovnání výsledků je zkoumán rozdíl při použití metody HCF v síti s podporou QoS. Model UMTS sítě obsahuje základnové stanice Node B s možností vysílání do tří sektorů. Mobilní účastník pohybující se po trajektorii představuje princip funkce Softer Handover. Konfrontace mezi scénáři je zastoupena kompresí záhlaví pomocí funkce PDCP a rozlišení Type of Service. Obzvláště je sledováno chování prioritních dat hlasu a videa u obou sítí. Naměřená data zastupují grafy a průběhy výsledních charakteristik. Analýza diskutuje odlišnosti u sítě bez podpory a s podporou kvality služeb. Rozdíly jsou porovnány a vyhodnoceny dle metodiky QoS. Součástí práce je i řešení problémů při návrhu UMTS sítě a podány jsou taky užitečné tipy a návrhy na jejich odstranění. Projekty v simulačním softwaru jsou popsány dle postupu vyhotovení, avšak hloubka podrobností je potlačena. Detaily nejsou rozebírány, protože se očekává pokročilá znalost mechanizmů a jistá dávka zkušeností s programem.The thesis is written in English and focuses on IEEE 802.11e standard, containing support for Quality of Service (QoS) and also discusses QoS in the UMTS system. It analyzes the main theoretical pillars of the mechanisms while the practical part deals with simulation of the network models. The 802.11e standard clatifies interconnection among layers on physical level and refers to the access to media DCF, PCF, HCF, EDCA, HCCA, and furthermore, the access category and also differences in the MAC sublayer. It is analysed problems in the transmission of data based on identifiers priority. The structure and format of the framework and techniques of spread spectrum are also discussed. Time limits for delivery of data priority and the requirements for these data can easily be compared in the tables. The area of quality of service is a very complex issue, and the thesis also analyzes the basic parameters such as end-to-end delay, jitter, dropping data, throughput, queue size and value of the MOS. The mechanisms of integrated (RSVP) and differentiated services to ensure QoS are also mentioned. In the case of third-generation UMTS architecture is illustrated a mutual cooperation with the GSM system. Interconnection between networks is evident from the pictures. A special attention is focused on layer model and the RRM functions to ensure QoS. The mechanisms of Handover Control and Admission Control are clarified too. It analyzes different traffic classes, such as Conversational, Streaming, Interactive and Background. The practical part takes place in the software OPNET Modeler programme. The author developed two models with different scenarios for comparison to QoS support. The wireless model explaining the principle of the 802.11e standard includes two wireless network access points and stations, which are monitored by the simulation with different data transmitted loads. For comparison of the results is examined using the difference method HCF in the network with QoS support. The model of the UMTS network includes base stations Node Bs, with the possibility of broadcasting into three sectors. The mobile subscribers moving on a trajectory are to show the principle functions of the Softer Handover. Confrontation between scenarios is represented by using header compression by PDCP and distinguishing the Type of Service. In particular, it is examined the behavior of priority voice and video data streams in both networks. The measured data are demonstrated by graphs and curves of result characteristics. The analysis discusses the differences in the network without the QoS support and with promotion of quality of services. Differences are compared and evaluated by the methodology of QoS. The work also includes problem solving in the design of the UMTS model and simultaneously gives tips and suggestions for overcoming them. The projects in the simulation software are described according to the procedure of execution, but the depth of details is suppressed. Details are not discussed in this work because some level of advanced knowledge of the mechanisms and a certain amount of experience are necessary.