A weighted fairness guarantee scheme based on node cooperation for multimedia WLAN mesh networks

In this paper, we focus on weighted fairness in multimedia WLAN mesh networks. Based on the analysis of the fairness problem of IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) scheme in WLAN mesh networks, we propose a weighted fairness guarantee scheme (WFGS), which provides weighted fairness for multimedia flows with different QoS requirements through node cooperation. WFGS piggybacks extra field in RTS/CTS frames to declare the channel occupation ratio of each flow. Accordingly, the transmitters can get the neighboring flows’ channel occupation ratio via overhearing the RTS/CTS frames from its neighbors, and cooperatively adjust the contention window size to achieve weighted fairness among the flows. Also, to reliably reserve transmissions, an adaptive power control based RTS/CTS handshake mechanism is introduced. Simulation results show that compared with EDCA scheme, WFGS can effectively resolve the collisions induced by the carrier interference and thereby guarantee both the short-term and long-term weighted fairness among multimedia flows.