A QoS Estimation-Based Scheduler for Real-Time Traffic in IEEE 802.11e Mobile Ad hoc Networks

ABSTRACT

For mobile ad hoc networks, the IEEE 802.11e standard specification provides Quality of Service (QoS) facility support in the MAC layer by Enhanced Distribution Channel Access (EDCA), which provides differentiated and distributed access to the wireless medium with four access categories (AC). It works efficiently for constant bit rate (CBR) types of traffic; however, for the case of variable bit rate (VBR) types of traffic, it shows poor performance due to the static nature of computing the number of packets and the time required to transmit these packets. In this paper, we present an EDCA scheduling algorithm that allocates transmission opportunities (TXOP) for fluctuating VBR traffic depending on their queue length estimations for mobile ad hoc networks. We classify the channel state as good or bad based on the channel error conditions. Then the scheduler determines the mean application data rate and estimates the TXOP for the next interval on the same Traffic Stream (TS). By simulation results, we show that the proposed scheduling scheme achieves good throughput and fairness with reduced delay for the VBR traffic class.     

A scalable multimedia QoS architecture for ad hoc networks

Communication demands have grown from separate data and voice to integrated multimedia, paving the way to converging fixed, mobile and IP networks. Supporting Multimedia is a challenging task for wireless ad hoc network designers. Multimedia forms high data rate traffic with stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Wireless ad hoc networks are characterized by frequent topology changes, unreliable wireless channel, network congestion and resource contention. Providing scalable QoS is the most important challenge for multimedia delivery over ad hoc networks. We introduce here a provisioning and routing architecture for ad hoc networks which scales well while provisioning QoS. The proposed architecture is analysed using a mix of HTTP, voice and video streaming applications over 54 Mbps 802.11 g-based ad hoc networks. The architecture is simulated and compared to well-known routing protocols using the OPNET Modeller. The results show that our architecture scales well with increase in the network size, and outperforms well-known routing protocols.     

Differentiation, QoS guarantee, and optimization for real-time traffic over one-hop ad hoc networks

Nodes having a self-centrically broadcasting nature of communication form a wireless ad hoc network. Many issues are involved to provide quality of service (QoS) for ad hoc networks, including routing, medium access, resource reservation, mobility management, etc. Previous work mostly focuses on QoS routing with an assumption that the medium access control (MAC) layer can support QoS very well. However, contention-based MAC protocols are adopted in most ad hoc networks since there is no centralized control. QoS support in contention-based MAC layer is a very challenging issue. Carefully designed distributed medium access techniques must be used as foundations for most ad hoc networks. In this paper, we study and enhance distributed medium access techniques for real-time transmissions in the IEEE 802.11 single-hop ad hoc wireless networks. In the IEEE 802.11 MAC, error control adopts positive acknowledgement and retransmission to improve transmission reliability in the wireless medium (WM). However, for real-time multimedia traffic with sensitive delay requirements, retransmitted frames may be too late to be useful due to the fact that the delay of competing the WM is unpredictable. In this paper, we address several MAC issues and QoS issues for delay-sensitive real-time traffic. First, a priority scheme is proposed to differentiate the delay sensitive real-time traffic from the best-effort traffic. In the proposed priority scheme, retransmission is not used for the real-time traffic, and a smaller backoff window size is adopted. Second, we propose several schemes to guarantee QoS requirements. The first scheme is to guarantee frame-dropping probability for the real-time traffic. The second scheme is to guarantee throughput and delay. The last scheme is to guarantee throughput, delay, and frame-dropping probability simultaneously. Finally, we propose adaptive window backoff schemes to optimize throughput with and without QoS constraints.     

Performance analysis of the TXOP burst transmission scheme in single-hop ad hoc networks with unbalanced stations

Transmission Opportunity (TXOP) is a promising burst transmission scheme defined in the IEEE 802.11e Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol to achieve differentiated Quality-of-Service (QoS) and improve the utilization of the scarce wireless bandwidth. Although performance modelling of the TXOP scheme has attracted tremendous research efforts from both the academia and industry, most existing analytical models have been developed under the unrealistic assumption that stations in wireless networks generate identical traffic loads. However, this assumption fails to capture the behaviour of wireless stations under the realistic working environment. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a new analytical model for the TXOP service differentiation scheme in single-hop ad hoc networks in the presence of unbalanced stations with different traffic loads. The QoS performance metrics including throughput, end-to-end delay, frame dropping probability, and energy consumption are derived. Extensive NS-2 simulation experiments are conducted to validate the accuracy of the developed model. The analytical results demonstrate the efficiency of the TXOP scheme for QoS differentiation and performance enhancement. Moreover, the analytical model is adopted as a cost-effective tool to investigate the impact of the buffer size and the number of stations on the performance of the TXOP scheme. The performance results show that the desirable throughput differentiation for different stations can be achieved by setting the appropriate TXOP limits.     

存在隐藏终端的IEEE 802.11e多跳无线网络模型分析*

首次将802.11e的接入机制放入多跳环境中进行仿真分析和定量研究。提出一种新的多跳环境下802.11e网络模型,结合M/G/1/K排队模型,定量分析在隐藏终端影响下802.11e网络的MAC层吞吐率、MAC时延和帧丢失率,研究802.11e在多跳环境下性能表现的内在原因。经过仿真实验结果与数值分析结果的对比,验证了分析模型的准确性;通过有（无）隐藏终端影响下MAC层性能的对比分析,指出了802.11e在多跳无线网络中支持QoS的局限性：受隐藏终端的影响,802.11e对不同接入等级的业务提供QoS区分的性能明显降级。因而有必要研究隐藏终端问题的解决方案,提高802.11e在多跳环境下的性能。     

Revealing the problems with 802.11 medium access control protocol in multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks

The IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocol is a standard for wireless LANs, it is also widely used in almost all test beds and simulations for the research in wireless mobile multi-hop ad hoc networks. However, this protocol was not designed for multi-hop networks. Although it can support some ad hoc network architecture, it is not intended to support the wireless mobile ad hoc network, in which multi-hop connectivity is one of the most prominent features. In this paper, we focus on the following question: can IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol function well in multi-hop networks? By presenting several serious problems encountered in transmission control protocol (TCP) connections in an IEEE 802.11 based multi-hop network, we show that the current TCP protocol does not work well above the current 802.11 MAC layer. The relevant problems include the TCP instability problem found in this kind of network, the severe unfairness problem, and the incompatibility problem. We illustrate that all these problems are rooted in the MAC layer. Furthermore, by revealing the in-depth cause of these problems, we conclude that the current version of this wireless LAN protocol does not function well in multi-hop ad hoc networks. We thus doubt whether the current WaveLAN based system is workable as a mobile multi-hop ad hoc test bed. All the results shown in this paper are based on NS2 simulations, and are compatible with the results from the OPNET simulations.     

存在隐藏终端的IEEE802.11e多跳无线网络模型分析

首次将802.11e的接入机制放入多跳环境中进行仿真分析和定量研究。提出一种新的多跳环境下802.11e网络模型,结合M/G/1/K排队模型,定量分析在隐藏终端影响下802.11e网络的MAC层吞吐率、MAC时延和帧丢失率,研究802.11e在多跳环境下性能表现的内在原因。经过仿真实验结果与数值分析结果的对比,验证了分析模型的准确性;通过有(无)隐藏终端影响下MAC层性能的对比分析,指出了802.11e在多跳无线网络中支持QoS的局限性:受隐藏终端的影响,802.11e对不同接入等级的业务提供QoS区分的性能明显降级。因而有必要研究隐藏终端问题的解决方案,提高802.11e在多跳环境下的性能。     

无线Ad hoc多媒体网络中的可用带宽估计

在无线Ahhoc网络上传输具有较高性能要求的多媒体业务,需要为这种网络安装某种QoS路由和准入控制机制。而路径可用带宽计算是任何QoS路由算法的核心部分。802.11无线通道是一类基于CSMA机制的传输介质,建立在802.11MAC层上的多跳Adhoc网络存在流内和流间干扰,所以其可用带宽估计需要特别地加以设计。借鉴[2]的基本思想,根据真实试验,论文对[2]中仿真验证的算法做了一些修正,给出了一个简单、实际可行的可用带宽计算方法,并在DSR试验床上进行了验证。     

Channel time allocation scheme based on feedback information in IEEE 802.11e wireless LANs

The IEEE 802.11e standard defines a set of quality of service (QoS) enhancements for wireless local area network (WLAN) applications such as voice and streaming multimedia traffic. In the standard, a new medium access control (MAC) protocol is called the hybrid coordinator function (HCF), and also a channel access scheme to transmit multimedia traffic is called the HCF controlled channel access (HCCA). In the IEEE 802.11e WLANs, to satisfy the stringent real-time constraints of multimedia services it is very important to provide an efficient method of allocating network resources. In this regard, we propose a feedback-assisted dynamic channel time allocation scheme considering the application layer information in order to achieve better performance of multimedia traffic over IEEE 802.11e HCCA under the constrained QoS requirements. Performance of the proposed scheme is investigated by simulation. Our results show that under typical channel error conditions, the proposed scheme is very effective regardless of the variation of station numbers and service intervals. Also, it yields high performances while guaranteeing the delay bound.     

蓝牙与802．11b视频流传输性能研究和比较

目前无线ad hoc网络发展的目标是支持多媒体数据的传输，基于ad hoc网络的视频流传输有着巨大的应用前景。但是无线传输介质的不稳定特性决定了其支持视频流传输存在较大的挑战。在分析蓝牙和802．11b技术各自优缺点的基础上，设计了基于蓝牙和802．11b无线ad hoc网络视频流传输的模拟实验架构。在不同码率和不同路径长度的模拟环境下测试了解码视频流的质量，研究、对比了二者在视频流传输中的性能。     

Dynamic duty cycle and adaptive contention window based QoS-MAC protocol for wireless multimedia sensor networks

Rapid penetration of small, customized wireless devices and enormous growth of wireless communication technologies has already set the stage for large-scale deployment of wireless sensor networks. While the need to minimize the energy consumption has driven significant researches in wireless sensor networks, offering some precise quality of service (QoS) for multimedia transmission over sensor networks has not received significant attention. However, the emerging new applications like video surveillance, telemedicine and traffic monitoring needs transmission of wireless multimedia over sensor networks. Naturally, offering some better QoS for wireless multimedia over sensor networks raises significant challenges. The network needs to cope up with battery-constraints, while providing improved QoS (end-to-end delay and bandwidth requirement). This calls for a suitable sensory MAC protocol capable of achieving application-specific QoS. In this paper, we have proposed a new QoS-based sensory MAC protocol, which not only adapts to application-oriented QoS, but also attempts to conserve energy without violating QoS-constraints. Performance modeling, analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol is capable of providing lower delay and better throughput, at the cost of reasonable energy consumption, in comparison to other existing sensory MAC protocols.     

Wireless multimedia delivery over 802.11e with cross-layer optimization techniques

The use of wireless networks has spread further than simple data transfer to delay sensitive and loss tolerant multimedia applications. Over the past few years, wireless multimedia transmission across Wireless Local area Networks (WLANs) has gained a lot of attention because of the introduction of technologies such as Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, 3G, and WiMAX. The IEEE 802.11 WLAN has become a dominating technology due to its low cost and ease of implementation. But, transmitting video over WLANs in real time remains a challenge because it imposes strong demands on video codec, the underlying network, and the Media Access Control (MAC) layer. This paper presents a cross-layer mapping algorithm to improve the quality of transmission of H.264 (a recently-developed video coding standard of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group) video stream over IEEE 802.11e-based wireless networks. The major goals of H.264 standard were on improving the rate distortion and the enhanced compression performance. Our proposed cross-layer design involves the mapping of H.264 video slices (packets) to appropriate access categories of IEEE 802.11e according to their information significance. We evaluate the performance of our proposed cross-layer design and the results obtained demonstrate its effectiveness in exploiting characteristics of the MAC and application layers to improve the video transmission quality.     

Priority and delay aware packet management framework for real-time video transport over 802.11e WLANs

The rigid delay constraint is one of the most challenging issues in real-time video delivery over wireless networks. The expired video packets will become useless for the decoding and display even if they are received correctly at the receiver. Because the significance of each video packet is different, the schedulers have to take into account not only the urgency of the packet but also its importance in the real-time video applications. However, the existing QoS-based IEEE 802.11e MAC protocol leaves the urgency and the importance of video packets out of consideration. This paper proposes a Priority and Delay Aware Packet Management Framework (PDA-PMF) to improve the transmission quality of real-time video streaming over IEEE 802.11e WLANs. In the MAC layer, this framework estimates the delay of each video packet. Subsequently, video packets are sent or dropped according to both the significance of the video packets and the estimation value of the delay. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can not only reduce the packet losses, but also protect the more important video packets, so as to improve the received video quality effectively.     

An efficient joint channel assignment and QoS routing protocol for IEEE 802.11 multi-radio multi-channel wireless mesh networks

With the emerging of video, voice over IP (VoIP) and other real-time multimedia services, more and more people pay attention to quality of service (QoS) issues in terms of the bandwidth, delay and jitter, etc. As one effective way of broadband wireless access, it has become imperative for wireless mesh networks (WMNs) to provide QoS guarantee. Existing works mostly modify QoS architecture dedicated for ad hoc or sensor networks, and focus on single radio and single channel case. Meanwhile, they study the QoS routing or MAC protocol from view of isolated layer. In this paper, we propose a novel cross-layer QoS-aware routing protocol on OLSR (CLQ-OLSR) to support real-time multimedia communication by efficiently exploiting multi-radio and multi-channel method. By constructing multi-layer virtual logical mapping over physical topology, we implement two sets of routing mechanisms, physical modified OLSR protocol (M-OLSR) and logical routing, to accommodate network traffic. The proposed CLQ-OLSR is based on a distributed bandwidth estimation scheme, implemented at each node for estimating the available bandwidth on each associated channel. By piggybacking the bandwidth information in HELLO and topology control (TC) messages, each node disseminates information of topology and available bandwidth to other nodes in the whole network in an efficient way. From topology and bandwidth information, the optimized path can be identified. Finally, we conduct extensive simulation to verify the performance of CLQ-OLSR in different scenarios on QualNet platform. The results demonstrate that our proposed CLQ-OLSR outperforms single radio OLSR, multi-radio OLSR and OLSR with differentiated services (DiffServ) in terms of network aggregate throughput, end-to-end packet delivery ratio, delay and delay jitter with reasonable message overheads and hardware costs. In particular, the network aggregate throughput for CLQ-OLSR can almost be improved by 300% compared with the single radio case.     

A Cross-Layer Approach to Multichannel MAC Protocol Design for Video Streaming Over Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

This paper presents a cross-layer design for a reliable video transmission over wireless ad hoc networks based on multichannel MAC protocol with TDMA. First, we conduct a study of the multichannel MAC protocol through Markov chain model. Based on this study, two novel cross-layer modules are adopted for the design of multichannel MAC protocol. First, we adopt maximum latency rate (MLR) as the channel quality metric. Unlike the traditional MAC design based on network allocation vector (NAV), MLR is implemented to provide differentiated traffic so that the channel with smaller MLR time is initiated for higher priority traffic. Second, we adopt two congestion-aware metrics, namely MAC utilization and queue length of MAC layer, to improve the congestion-aware routing protocols with AODV and DSR. These two novel modules allow the proposed MAC protocol design to achieve high performance video transmission over wireless ad hoc networks. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the state-of-the-art schemes under multichannel environments in wireless ad hoc networks for as much as 3.6 dB in PSNR. Such significant performance enhancement confirms that the cross-layer approach is very effective for multichannel MAC protocol design.     

无线自组织网络中的IEEE802．11 MAC协议的研究

IEEES02．11 DCF作为无线局域网的MAC层规范被广泛应用于无线自组织网络的仿真和测试中。通过研究发现即使在拓扑不变的条件下，使用表驱动路由协议DSDV，TCP流仍然存在不稳定和不公平现象，本文分析了问题产生的原因，提出了基于网络负载的解决问题方法。     

A new MAC protocol design based on TDMA/FDD for QoS support in WATM networks

Several wireless networking solutions have been developed to provide different types of services for various end user applications. Currently, wireless networking infrastructures are not suitable for multimedia applications each requiring a different QoS support with various traffic parameters. Due to the success of ATM technology in the wired network, WATM concept and related researches are of importance in the information technology area. Main objective of WATM, which promises seamless transmission of different traffics such as voice, data and video over wireless medium, is to implement high bit rate and QoS guaranteed data transfer, already well achieved by ATM technology over wired medium. To support QoS guaranteed data transfer over error-prone and low bandwidth wireless medium, an effective MAC protocol must be designed and utilized. In this paper, a new TDMA/FDD based MAC protocol, maintaining QoS requirements of real-time wireless multimedia applications, is proposed. The main contribution of this study is the new guarantee-based scheduling algorithm used in the proposed MAC to support required level of QoS guarantee for all multimedia traffic types in wireless medium. Computer modeling and simulation of the new approach providing CBR, VBR, ABR and UBR ATM services are realized using OPNET Modeler. Simulation results are also presented together with comparisons those of a WATM counterpart which uses PRMA/DA MAC protocol.     

Double sense multiple access for wireless ad hoc networks

In wireless ad hoc networks, the major quality of service (QoS) concern and challenge in the design and analysis of contention-based medium access control (MAC) protocols is to achieve good throughput and access delay performance in the presence of hidden terminals, which are defined as the terminals out of the radio coverage area of an intended transmitter but within that of the receiver. We propose and analyze in this paper a new dual-channel random access protocol, called “Double Sense Multiple Access” (DSMA), for improving QoS support in wireless ad hoc networks. By separating the transmissions of ready-to-send (RTS) and data packets into two time-slotted channels and by introducing a novel double sense mechanism, DSMA completely solves the hidden terminal problem and can guarantee the success transmission of data packets. By taking into account the most complex network scenario in which all transmitters are hidden terminals with respect to each other, key QoS metrics such as throughput, blocking probability and access delay are derived mathematically for the proposed DSMA protocol. These analytical results are verified by extensive computer simulations.     

无线Ad Hoc网络QoS路由协议研究的进展与展望

无线ad hoc网络是一种无固定通信设备支持、节点可自由移动的多跳全分布式无线网络。无线ad hoc网络的应用环境以及与Internet的互连要求它必须提供一定的服务质量(QoS)保证，而QoS路由协议是无线ad hoc网络支持QoS的一个关键理论和技术，也是目前的一个研究热点。本文回顾了近年来国内外在无线ad hoc网络QoS路由协议研究方面取得的研究成果，对已有的无线ad hoc网络的QoS路由协议进行了分类．并对它们作了较全面的概括。总结和深入的比较分析，系统阐述了在无线ad hoc网络中实现QoS路由协议时需要考虑的因素，指出了亟待解决的问题和今后的研究方向。     

无线网络中实时业务的信道预留

随着无线数据服务的流行和多媒体应用需求的增长,需要无线网络能够为不同种类的业务提供有区别的服务质量(QoS),因此如何在无线网络中提供有区分和有保证的服务质量,成为一个非常重要的问题。论文提出了一种在IEEE802.11无线网络中为实时业务提供服务质量保证的有效方法,即通过修改介质访问控制(MAC)层的分布式协调功能(DCF),为实时数据预留信道。当一个节点竞争到信道后,可以连续向同一个目标节点发送多个实时数据帧,称作传送突发(TB,TransmissionBurst),即在一个TB中第一个数据帧将为实时业务预留信道,直到这个TB结束,这样实时业务将比其他业务占有更多的信道资源。仿真结果表明,该方法能够明显改进实时业务的吞吐率和延迟性能,提高无线网络的信道利用率,而且,对DCF的修改没有增加任何控制开销。