TCP throughput efficiency enhancement in IEEE 802.11n network

The new opportunities opened up by wireless technologies are also accompanied with new technical challenges. Principal among the challenges is the fact that wireless medium has limited bandwidth resources when compared with wired equivalent. The convenience brought about by the IEEE 802.11n protocol is also followed by the technical challenge of near average performance of the widely used transport control protocol (TCP) due to limited bandwidth resources of the wireless medium. IEEE 802.11n specifies standard for physical (PHY) and MAC layers of wireless local area networks (WLANs) which is based on the IEEE 802.11-2007 networking reference standard. This work is meant to enhance the efficiency of TCP in IEEE 802.11n network in order to improve per user bandwidth. ACK suppression in both downstream and upstream TCP flow is used to improve bandwidth. The network bandwidth of an IEEE 802.11n LAN is simulated under two access methods; request-to-send/clear-to-send (RTS/CTS) access method and the basic method. Results showed an improvement in throughput efficiency over 10 nodes, which demonstrate performance improvement of TCP ACK suppression as 50% in comparison with receiver policy of acknowledging every TCP data segment and approximately 20% when compared with receiver's policy of acknowledging every TCP data segment in the network. Simulation was conducted in Matlab R2012a

IEEE 802.11n MAC frame aggregation mechanisms for next-generation high-throughput WLANs [Medium access control protocols for wireless LANs]

IEEE 802.11n is an ongoing next-generation wireless LAN standard that supports a very highspeed connection with more than 100 Mb/s data throughput measured at the medium access control layer. This article investigates the key MAC enhancements that help 802.11n achieve high throughput and high efficiency. A detailed description is given for various frame aggregation mechanisms proposed in the latest 802.11n draft standard. Our simulation results confirm that A-MSDU, A-MPDU, and a combination of these methods improve extensively the channel efficiency and data throughput. We analyze the performance of each frame aggregation scheme in distinct scenarios, and we conclude that overall, the two-level aggregation is the most efficacious

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

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)

Experimental Performance Evaluation and Frame Aggregation Enhancement in IEEE 802.11n WLANs

The IEEE 802.11n standard promises to extend today’s most popular WLAN standard by significantly increasing reach, reliability, and throughput. Ratified on September 2009, this standard defines many new physical and medium access control (MAC) layer enhancements. These enhancements aim to provide a data transmission rate of up to 600 Mbps. Since June 2007, 802.11n products are available on the enterprise market based on the draft 2.0. In this paper we investigate the effect of most of the proposed 802.11n MAC and physical layer features on the adhoc networks performance. We have performed several experiments in real conditions. The experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of 802.11n enhancement. We have also examined the interoperability and fairness of 802.11n. The frame aggregation mechanism of 802.11n MAC layer can improve the efficiency of channel utilization by reducing the protocol overheads. We focused on the effect of frame aggregation on the support of voice and video applications in wireless networks. We also propose a new frame aggregation scheduler that considers specific QoS requirements for multimedia applications. We dynamically adjust the aggregated frame size based on frame's access category defined in 802.11e standard

Aggregation with fragment retransmission for very high-speed WLANs

In upcoming very high-speed WLANs the physical layer (PHY) rate may reach 600 Mbps. To achieve high efficiency at the medium access control (MAC) layer, we identify fundamental properties that must be satisfied by any CSMA/CA based MAC layer and develop a novel scheme called Aggregation with Fragment Retransmission (AFR). In the AFR scheme, multiple packets are aggregated into and transmitted in a single large frame. If errors happen during the transmission, only the corrupted fragments of the large frame are retransmitted. An analytic model is developed to evaluate the throughput and delay performance of AFR over a noisy channel, and to compare AFR with competing schemes in the literature. Optimal frame and fragment sizes are calculated using this model. Transmission delays are minimised by using a zero-waiting mechanism where frames are transmitted immediately once the MAC wins a transmission opportunity. We prove that zero waiting can achieve maximum throughput. As a complement to the theoretical analysis, we investigate by simulations the impact of AFR on the performance of realistic application traffic with diverse requirements. We have implemented the AFR scheme in the NS-2 simulator and present detailed results for TCP, VoIP and HDTV traffic. The AFR scheme described was developed as part of the 802.11n working group work. The analysis presented here is general enough to be extended to the proposed scheme in the upcoming 802.11n standard. Trends indicated by our simulation results should extend to any well-designed aggregation scheme

Improving Performance for CSMA/CA Based Wireless Networks

Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) based wireless networks are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. With the aim of supporting rich multimedia applications such as high-definition television (HDTV, 20Mbps) and DVD (9.8Mbps), one of the technology trends is towards increasingly higher bandwidth. Some recent IEEE 802.11n proposals seek to provide PHY rates of up to 600 Mbps. In addition to increasing bandwidth, there is also strong interest in extending the coverage of CSMA/CA based wireless networks. One solution is to relay traffic via multiple intermediate stations if the sender and the receiver are far apart. The so called “mesh” networks based on this relay-based approach, if properly designed, may feature both “high speed” and “large coverage” at the same time. This thesis focusses on MAC layer performance enhancements in CSMA/CA based networks in this context. Firstly, we observe that higher PHY rates do not necessarily translate into corresponding increases in MAC layer throughput due to the overhead of the CSMA/CA based MAC/PHY layers. To mitigate the overhead, we propose a novel MAC scheme whereby transported information is partially acknowledged and retransmitted. Theoretical analysis and extensive simulations show that the proposed MAC approach can achieve high efficiency (low MAC overhead) for a wide range of channel variations and realistic traffic types. Secondly, we investigate the close interaction between the MAC layer and the buffer above it to improve performance for real world traffic such as TCP. Surprisingly, the issue of buffer sizing in 802.11 wireless networks has received little attention in the literature yet it poses fundamentally new challenges compared to buffer sizing in wired networks. We propose a new adaptive buffer sizing approach for 802.11e WLANs that maintains a high level of link utilisation, while minimising queueing delay. Thirdly, we highlight that gross unfairness can exist between competing flows in multihop mesh networks even if we assume that orthogonal channels are used in neighbouring hops. That is, even without inter-channel interference and hidden terminals, multi-hop mesh networks which aim to offer a both “high speed” and “large coverage” are not achieved. We propose the use of 802.11e’s TXOP mechanism to restore/enfore fairness. The proposed approach is implementable using off-the-shelf devices and fully decentralised (requires no message passing)

Performance Improvement Of Mac Layer In Terms Of Reverse Direction Transmission Based On IEEE 802.11n

Medium access control (MAC) layer is one of the most prominent topics in the area of wireless networks. MAC protocols play a big role in improving the performance of wireless networks, and there are many challenges that have been addressed by the researchers to improve the performance of MAC layer in the family of IEEE 802.11. The physical data rate in IEEE 802.11n may reach 600 Mbps, this high data rate does not necessary transform into good performance efficiency, since the overhead at the MAC layer signifies that by augmenting PHY rates the effectiveness is automatically reduced. Therefore, the main objective of next generation wireless local area networks (WLANs) IEEE 802.11n is to achieve high throughput and able to support some applications such as TCP 100 Mbps and HDTV 20 Mbps and less delay. To mitigate the overhead and increase the MAC efficiency for IEEE 802.11n, one of the key enhancements at MAC layer in IEEE 802.11n is a reverse direction transmission. Reverse direction transmission mainly aims to accurately exchange the data between two devices, and does not support error recovery and correction; it drops the entire erroneous frame even though only a single bit error exists in the frame and then causes a retransmission overhead. Thus, two new schemes called (RD-SFF) Reverse Direction Single Frame Fragmentation and (RD-MFF) Reverse Direction Multi Frame Fragmentation are proposed in this study. The RD-SFF role is to aggregate the packets only into large frame, while RD-MFF aggregate both packets and frames into larger frame, then divided each data frame in both directions into subframes, Then it sends each subframe over reverse direction transmission. During the transmission, only the corrupted subframes need to be retransmited if an error occured, instead of the whole frame. Fragmentation method is also examined whereby the packets which are longer when compared to a threshold are split into fragments prior to being combined. The system is examined by simulation using NS-2. The simulation results show that the RD-SFF scheme significantly improves the performance over reverse direction transmission with single data frame up to 100%. In addition, the RD-MFF scheme improvers the performance over reverse direction transmission with multi data frames up to 44% based on network condition. These results show the benefits of fragmentation method in retransmission overhead and erroneous transmission. The results obtained by ON/OFF scheme takes into account the channel condition to show the benefits of our adaptive scheme in both ideal as well as erroneous networks. In conclusion, this research has achieved its stated objective of mitigation the overhead and increase the MAC efficiency for IEEE 802.11n. Additionally, the proposed schemes show a significant improvement over the reverse direction in changing network conditions to the current network state

Reverse direction transmission using single data frame and multi data frames to improve the performance of mac layer based on IEEE 802.11N

Reverse direction transmission and block ACK are effective ways to improve the performance of MAC layer that reduces the overhead and increases the system throughput. As high as 600 Mbps of physical data rate is achieved in IEEE 802.11n where high data rate of the current MAC layer leads to a high performance overhead and low performance throughput. Further,designing the MAC layer is still ongoing to achieve high performance throughput. In this paper, we examine the performance enhancement of the proposed 802.11n MAC layer in terms of reverse direction transmission using a single data frame and multi data frames. We implemented these schemes in the NS2 simulator to show the results for TCP traffic and compared them with the literature