Wireless broadband access: WiMAX and beyond - Investigation of bandwidth request mechanisms under point-to-multipoint mode of WiMAX networks

The WiMAX standard specifies a metropolitan area broadband wireless access air interface. In order to support QoS for multimedia applications, various bandwidth request and scheduling mechanisms are suggested in WiMAX, in which a subscriber station can send request messages to a base station, and the base station can grant or reject the request according to the available radio resources. This article first compares two fundamental bandwidth request mechanisms specified in the standard, random access vs. polling under the point-to-multipoint mode, a mandatory transmission mode. Our results demonstrate that random access outperforms polling when the request rate is low. However, its performance degrades significantly when the channel is congested. Adaptive switching between random access and polling according to load can improve system performance. We also investigate the impact of channel noise on the random access request mechanism

Investigation of efficient resource allocation schemes for WiMAX networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University on 9 July 2008.WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a promising wireless technology with the aim of providing the last mile wireless broadband access designed for both fixed and mobile consumers as an alternative solution to the wired DSL and cable access schemes. The purpose of this research project is to investigate efficient resource allocation algorithms for WiMax. To achieve this goal, we investigate efficient PHY layer Partial Usage of SubCarriers (PUSC) allocation as well as MAC layer piggyback bandwidth request mechanisms. At the PHY layer we proposed improvements on the Uplink and Downlink PUSC subcarrier allocation scheme. For the Uplink PUSC we suggested a method by allocating different frequencies to neighbouring cells in combination with the Integer Frequency Reuse (IFR) and Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) in order to reduce interferences and collisions. The simulation results exhibit that collision rates can be reduced to zero for both IFR and FFR patterns with the proposed improvement by assuming that perfect power control is used in the system. In addition, there is no collision at cell edges. The results also show that FFR patterns achieve lower inter-cell interference and higher capacities as compared to the IFR patterns. For the Downlink PUSC we introduced an offset scheme with the purpose of increasing the number of users in the system. At the MAC layer we propose an improvement on the piggyback bandwidth request mechanism by increasing the size of the piggyback bandwidth request in order to reduce the number of bandwidth requests and hence improve the resource utilisation. The simulation results demonstrate that our improved scheme achieves higher throughput, less delay and packet loss rates as compared to the standardised piggyback bandwidth request mechanism

A Fair and Efficient Packet Scheduling Scheme for IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Systems

This paper proposes a fair and efficient QoS scheduling scheme for IEEE 802.16 BWA systems that satisfies both throughput and delay guarantee to various real and non-real time applications. The proposed QoS scheduling scheme is compared with an existing QoS scheduling scheme proposed in literature in recent past. Simulation results show that the proposed scheduling scheme can provide a tight QoS guarantee in terms of delay, delay violation rate and throughput for all types of traffic as defined in the WiMAX standard, thereby maintaining the fairness and helps to eliminate starvation of lower priority class services. Bandwidth utilization of the system and fairness index of the resources are also encountered to validate the QoS provided by our proposed scheduling scheme

Service differentiation in OFDM-Based IEEE 802.16 networks

IEEE 802.16 network is widely viewed as a strong candidate solution for broadband wireless access systems. Various flexible mechanisms related to QoS provisioning have been specified for uplink traffic at the medium access control (MAC) layer in the standards. Among the mechanisms, bandwidth request scheme can be used to indicate and request bandwidth demands to the base station for different services. Due to the diverse QoS requirements of the applications, service differentiation (SD) is desirable for the bandwidth request scheme. In this paper, we propose several SD approaches. The approaches are based on the contention-based bandwidth request scheme and achieved by the means of assigning different channel access parameters and/or bandwidth allocation priorities to different services. Additionally, we propose effective analytical model to study the impacts of the SD approaches, which can be used for the configuration and optimization of the SD services. It is observed from simulations that the analytical model has high accuracy. Service can be efficiently differentiated with initial backoff window in terms of throughput and channel access delay. Moreover, the service differentiation can be improved if combined with the bandwidth allocation priority approach without adverse impacts on the overall system throughput

A Survey on Scheduling in IEEE 802.16 Mesh Mode

Cataloged from PDF version of article.IEEE 802.16 standard (also known as WiMAX) defines the wireless broadband network technology which aims to solve the so called last mile problem via providing high bandwidth Internet even to the rural areas for which the cable deployment is very costly. The standard mainly focuses on the MAC and PHY layer issues, supporting two transmission modes: PMP (Point-to-Multipoint) and mesh modes. Mesh mode is an optional mode developed as an extension to PMP mode and it has the advantage of having an improving performance as more subscribers are added to the system using multi-hop routes. In 802.16 MAC protocol, mesh mode slot allocation and reservation mechanisms are left open which makes this topic a hot research area. Hence, the focus of this survey will mostly be on the mesh mode, and the proposed scheduling algorithms and performance evaluation methods

Handover analysis over mobile WiMAX technology.

As new mobile devices and mobile applications continue to growth, so does the data traffic demand for broadband services access and the user needs toward mobility, thereby, wireless application became today the fastest solution and lowest cost implementation unlike traditional wired deployment such as optical fibers and digital lines. WiMAX technology satisfies this gap through its high network performance over the air interface and high data rates based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standards, this original specification does not support mobility. Therefore, the IEEE introduces a new standard that enables mobility profiles under 802.16e-2005, from which three different types of handovers process are introduced as hard handover (HHO), macro diversity handover (MDHO) and fast base station switching (FBSS) handover. The objective of this master thesis is to analyze how the handover process affects network performance. The analysis propose three scenarios, built over OPNET simulator to measure the most critical wireless parameter and performance indicator such as throughput, handover success rate, packet drop, delay and network usage.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Subcarrier and Power Allocation in WiMAX

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is one of the latest technologies for providing Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) in a metropolitan area. The use of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions has been proposed in WiMAX to mitigate the complications which are associated with frequency selective channels. In addition, the multiple access is achieved by using orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) scheme which has several advantages such as flexible resource allocation, relatively simple transceivers, and high spectrum efficient. In OFDMA the controllable resources are the subcarriers and the allocated power per subband. Moreover, adaptive subcarrier and power allocation techniques have been selected to exploit the natural multiuser diversity. This leads to an improvement of the performance by assigning the proper subcarriers to the user according to their channel quality and the power is allocated based on water-filling algorithm. One simple method is to allocate subcarriers and powers equally likely between all users. It is well known that this method reduces the spectral efficiency of the system, hence, it is not preferred unless in some applications. In order to handle the spectral efficiency problem, in this thesis we discuss three novel resources allocation algorithms for the downlink of a multiuser OFDM system and analyze the algorithm performances based on capacity and fairness measurement. Our intensive simulations validate the algorithm performances.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format