Simulation Analysis of Wireless Channel Effect on IEEE 802.11n Physical Layer

International audienceIEEE 802.11n standard came as a rescue; the existing standards are increasingly seen as inadequate since applications become more complex and require more bandwidth. Several techniques have been put into operation to meet two basic requirements: significantly greater bit rate and radio coverage. However, studies have shown that the theoretical limit in terms of throughput is far from being reached and that the received power does not explain the performance degradation. A list of suspect parameters is analyzed in this paper to assess their effect on performance of the IEEE 802.11n physical layer taken as an application of MIMO technology in indoor context. It is shown that for values of angular spread below 27°, the data rate cannot exceed 117 Mbps and the antennas spacing can compensate the performance degradation caused by other parameters. Results are given in terms of correlation coefficient, other channel characteristics and the packet error rate

Spatial data stream multiplexing scheme for high-throughput WLANs

A novel scheme using spatial data stream multiplexing (SDSM) in the upcoming multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO)-based IEEE 802.11n physical layer is proposed. It is shown that with SDSM, the same data rate can be achieved by using less number of transmit and receive antennas and therefore this scheme can reduce the number of antennas which results in reducing mutual coupling effects, hardware costs and implementation complexities. The maximum data rates that can be achieved using a 2 * 2 MIMO system is 270 Mbps and for a 4 * 4 MIMO system is 540 Mbps. The same data rates can be achieved using the SDSM technique which reduces the 2 * 2 MIMO system to 1 * 1 SISO system and the 4 * 4 MIMO system to a 2 * 2 MIMO system

Adaptive delayed channel access for IEEE 802.11n WLANs

Abstract— In this paper we investigate potential benefits that an adaptive delayed channel access algorithm can attain for the next-generation wireless LANs, the IEEE 802.11n. We show that the performance of frame aggregation introduced by the 802.11n adheres due to the priority mechanism of the legacy 802.11e EDCA scheduler, resulting in a poor overall performance. Because high priority flows have low channel utilization, the low priority flows throughputs can be amerced further. By introducing an additional delay at the MAC layer, before the channel access scheduling, it will retain aggregate sizes at higher numbers and consequently a better channel utilization. Also, in order to support both UDP and TCP transport layer protocols, the algorithm’s operational conditions are kept adaptive. The simulation results demonstrate that our proposed adaptive delayed channel access outperforms significantly the current 802.11n specification and non-adaptive delayed channel access

Scheduling for next generation WLANs: filling the gap between offered and observed data rates

In wireless networks, opportunistic scheduling is used to increase system throughput by exploiting multi-user diversity. Although recent advances have increased physical layer data rates supported in wireless local area networks (WLANs), actual throughput realized are significantly lower due to overhead. Accordingly, the frame aggregation concept is used in next generation WLANs to improve efficiency. However, with frame aggregation, traditional opportunistic schemes are no longer optimal. In this paper, we propose schedulers that take queue and channel conditions into account jointly, to maximize throughput observed at the users for next generation WLANs. We also extend this work to design two schedulers that perform block scheduling for maximizing network throughput over multiple transmission sequences. For these schedulers, which make decisions over long time durations, we model the system using queueing theory and determine users' temporal access proportions according to this model. Through detailed simulations, we show that all our proposed algorithms offer significant throughput improvement, better fairness, and much lower delay compared with traditional opportunistic schedulers, facilitating the practical use of the evolving standard for next generation wireless networks

A selective delayed channel access (SDCA) for the high-throughput IEEE 802.11n

Abstract— In this paper we investigate the potential benefits of a selective delayed channel access algorithm (SDCA) for the future IEEE 802.11n based high-throughput networks. The proposed solution aims to resolve the poor channel utilization and the low efficiency that EDCA’s high priority stations adhere due to shorter waiting times and consequently to the network’s degrading overall end performance. The algorithm functions at the MAC level where it delays the packets from being transmitted by postponing the channel access request, based on their traffic characteristics. As a result, the flow’s average aggregate size increases and consequently so is the channel efficiency. However, in some situations we notice that further deferring has a negative impact with TCP applications, thus we further introduce a traffic awareness feature that allows the algorithm to distinguish which flows are using the TCP protocol and override any additional MAC delay. We validate through various simulations that SDCA improves throughput significantly and maximizes channel utilization

Low energy indoor network : deployment optimisation

This article considers what the minimum energy indoor access point deployment is in order to achieve a certain downlink quality-of-service. The article investigates two conventional multiple-access technologies, namely: LTE-femtocells and 802.11n Wi-Fi. This is done in a dynamic multi-user and multi-cell interference network. Our baseline results are reinforced by novel theoretical expressions. Furthermore, the work underlines the importance of considering optimisation when accounting for the capacity saturation of realistic modulation and coding schemes. The results in this article show that optimising the location of access points both within a building and within the individual rooms is critical to minimise the energy consumption

On the Performance of Packet Aggregation in IEEE 802.11ac MU-MIMO WLANs

Multi-user spatial multiplexing combined with packet aggregation can significantly increase the performance of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). In this letter, we present and evaluate a simple technique to perform packet aggregation in IEEE 802.11ac MU-MIMO (Multi-user Multiple Input Multiple Output) WLANs. Results show that in non-saturation conditions both the number of active stations (STAs) and the queue size have a significant impact on the system performance. If the number of stations is excessively high, the heterogeneity of destinations in the packets contained in the queue makes it difficult to take full advantage of packet aggregation. This effect can be alleviated by increasing the queue size, which increases the chances to schedule a large number of packets at each transmission, hence improving the system throughput at the cost of a higher delay