Providing Enhanced Framework to support QoS in Open Wireless Architecture

This paper presents a novel approach to support Quality of Service for Open Wireless Architectures (OWA), building a suitable framework over the top of the heterogeneous wireless MACs. It lets to enhance the existing QoS support provided by standard MAC protocols and it uses the contract model to guarantee QoS, taking into account the applications requests. It negotiates dynamically Application Level Contracts which will be translated seamlessly in Resource Level Contracts for the underlying network services. It receives the feedback by underlying network services to adjust the scheduling algorithms and policies to provide hard and soft guarantees. The framework comprises QoS Manager, Admission Control, Enhanced Scheduler, Predictor and Feedback System. The QoS manager component is able to dynamically manage available resources under different load conditions. A IEEE 802.11e Wireless LAN is simulated to show the benefits of this approach

Improving the design of wireless sensor networks using QoS-aware opportunistic techniques

The design of a Wireless Sensor Network with QoS is a challenging and complex topic especially when the post-deployment corrections are expensive. This paper proposes a design methodology of Wireless Sensor Networks to estimate network performance in terms of end-to-end delay and reliability. It uses a probabilistic model to determine the needed node density, then adopting a variant of geographic routing it lets to calculate the number of path hops. The introduced opportunistic mechanism offers a trade-off between low end-to-end delay and reliable packets delivery. The modeled network with the adopted Geographic Opportunistic Routing has been evaluated through simulations and some guidelines about its design in order to obtain desired performance are given

Performance evaluation of real-time schedulers for HCCA function in IEEE 802.11e wireless networks

IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless networks recently has been enhanced with IEEE 802.11e amendment to this protocol which introduces Quality of Service support. It provides differentiation mechanisms at the Medium Access Control layer, using two additional access functions: the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) function and the HCF Controlled Channel Access (HCCA) function. The EDCA function is based on a distributed control and enables prioritized channel access while the latter requires centralized scheduling and allows the applications to negotiate parameterized service guarantees. Only HCCA mechanism is suitable for serving traffic streams with real-time requirements such as multimedia applications and Voice Over IP. The IEEE 802.11e standard does not specify a mandatory HCCA scheduling algorithm, while it offers a reference scheduler. In this paper we analyze four HCCA schedulers which are alternative to the reference one and which offer real-time guarantees. A performance evaluation through simulation is conducted to show the main differences between the considered schedulers, including the reference one

Toward the QoS Support in 4G Wireless Systems

This paper presents a novel approach to support Quality of Service for wireless multimedia applications in the context of 4G wireless systems. Adopting a Service Oriented Architecture, it is inspired to Open Wireless Architectures (OWA), building a suitable framework over the top of the heterogeneous wireless MACs. It lets to enhance the existing QoS support provided by standard MAC protocols and it uses the contract model to guarantee QoS, taking into account the applications requests. It negotiates dynamically Application Level Contracts which will be translated seamlessly in Resource Level Contracts for the underlying network services. It receives the feedback by underlying network services to adjust the scheduling algorithms and policies to provide soft guarantees. The framework comprises QoS Manager, Admission Control, Enhanced Scheduler, Predictor and Feedback System. In particular, the QoS manager component is a middleware between applications and lower network layers and it is able to dynamically manage available resources under different load conditions in a transparent manner to application level

QoS Framework for wireless networks

This paper presents a work in progress about a cross-layer approach to support Quality of Service for wireless multimedia applications, building a suitable framework over the top of the heterogeneous wireless MACs. It lets to enhance the existing QoS support provided by standard MAC protocols and it uses the contract model to guarantee QoS, taking into account the applications requests. It negotiates dynamically Application Level Contracts which will be translated seamlessly in Resource Level Contracts for the underlying network services from which it receives the feedback to adjust the scheduling algorithms and policies to provide soft guarantees. The framework comprises QoS Manager, Admission Control, Enhanced Scheduler and Feedback System. The QoS manager component is a middleware able to dynamically manage available resources under different load conditions in a transparent manner to application level

A Scheduling Algorithm for Providing QoS Guarantees in 802.11e WLANs

In this paper we propose a scheduling algorithm for supporting Quality of Service (QoS) in an IEEE 802.11e network using the HCF Controlled Channel Access (HCCA) function. This is derived from Constant Bandwidth Server with Resource Constraints and adapted to wireless medium. It consists of a procedure to actually schedule transmission opportunities to HCCA flows with Quality of Service guarantees, in particular in the case of multimedia applications which present variable bit rate traffic

A IEEE 802.11e HCCA Scheduler with a Reclaiming Mechanism for Multimedia Applications

The QoS offered by the IEEE 802.11e reference scheduler is satisfactory in the case of Constant Bit Rate traffic streams, but not yet in the case of Variable Bit Rate traffic streams, whose variations stress its scheduling behavior. Despite the numerous proposed alternative schedulers with QoS, multimedia applications are looking for refined methods suitable to ensure service differentiation and dynamic update of protocol parameters. In this paper a scheduling algorithm,Unused Time Shifting Scheduler(UTSS), is deeply analyzed. It is designed to cooperate with a HCCA centralized real-time scheduler through the integration of a bandwidth reclaiming scheme, suitable to recover nonexhausted transmission time and assign that to the next polled stations. UTSS dynamically computes with anO(1)complexity transmission time providing an instantaneous resource overprovisioning. The theoretical analysis and the simulation results highlight that this injection of resources does not affect the admission control nor the centralized scheduler but is suitable to improve the performance of the centralized scheduler in terms of mean access delay, transmission queues length, bursts of traffic management, and packets drop rate. These positive effects are more relevant for highly variable bit rate traffic

W-CBS: A Scheduling Algorithm for Supporting QoS in IEEE 802.11e

This paper presents a new scheduling algorithm, the Wireless Constant Bandwidth Server (W-CBS) for the Access Points of an IEEE 802.11e wireless networks to support traffic streams with Quality of Service guarantees, in particular in the case of multimedia applications which present variable bit rate traffic. The performance of W-CBS is compared to that of the reference scheduler defined in 802.11e standard using the ns2 simulator. The results show that the W-CBS outperforms the reference scheduler with VBR traffic, in terms of resource utilization and maximum admitted flows

Elastic QoS Scheduling with Step-by-Step Propagation in IEEE 802.11e Networks with Multimedia Traffic

The spreading diffusion of wireless devices and the crowded coexistence of multimedia applications greedy of bandwidth and with strict requirements stress the service provisioning offered by wireless technologies. WiFi is a reference for wireless connectivity and it requires a continuous evolution of its mechanism in order to follow increasingly demanding service needs. In particular, despite the evolution of physical layer, some critical contexts, such as industrial networks, telemedicine, telerehabilitation, and virtual training, require further refined improvements in order to ensure the respect of strict real-time service requirements. In this paper an in-depth analysis of Dynamic TXOP HCCA (DTH) MAC enhanced centralized scheduler is illustrated and it is further refined introducing a new improvement, DTH with threshold. DTH and DTH with threshold can be integrated with preexisting centralized schedulers in order to improve their performances, without any overprovisioning that can negatively impact on the admission control feasibility test. Indeed, without modifying the centralized scheduler policy, they combine together the concepts of reclaiming transmission time and statistical estimation of the traffic profile in order to provide, at each polling, an instantaneous transmission time tailored to the variable traffic requirements, increasing, when necessary, the service data rate. These mechanisms can coexist with advanced physical layer-based solutions, providing the required service differentiation. Experimental results and theoretical analysis, based on elastic scheduler theory, show that they are effective especially in the case of Variable Bit Rate traffic streams in terms of transmission queues length, packets loss, delay, and throughput

Dynamic TXOP HCCA reclaiming scheduler with transmission time estimation for IEEE 802.11e real-time networks

IEEE 802.11e HCCA reference scheduler guarantees Quality of Service only for Constant Bit Rate traffic streams, whereas its as- signment of scheduling parameters (transmission time TXOP and polling period) is too rigid to serve Variable Bit Rate (VBR) traffic. This paper presents a new scheduling algorithm, Dynamic TXOP HCCA (DTH). Its scheduling scheme, integrated with the central- ized scheduler, uses both a statistical estimation of needed trans- mission duration and a bandwidth reclaiming mechanism with the aim of improving the resource management and providing an in- stantaneous dynamic Transmission Opportunity (TXOP), tailored to multimedia applications with variable bit rate. Performance evaluation through simulation, confirmed by the scheduling analysis, shows that DTH is suitable to reduce the transmission queues length. This positively impacts on the delay and on packets drop rate experienced by VBR traffic streams