No Arabic abstract
Opportunistic Routing (OR) is a novel routing technique for wireless mesh networks that exploits the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. OR combines frames from multiple receivers and therefore creates a form of Spatial Diversity, called MAC Diversity. The gain from OR is especially high in networks where the majority of links has a high packet loss probability. The updated IEEE 802.11n standard improves the physical layer with the ability to use multiple transmit and receive antennas, i.e. Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO), and therefore already offers spatial diversity on the physical layer, i.e. called Physical Diversity, which improves the reliability of a wireless link by reducing its error rate. In this paper we quantify the gain from MAC diversity as utilized by OR in the presence of PHY diversity as provided by a MIMO system like 802.11n. We experimented with an IEEE 802.11n indoor testbed and analyzed the nature of packet losses. Our experiment results show negligible MAC diversity gains for both interference-prone 2.4 GHz and interference-free 5 GHz channels when using 802.11n. This is different to the observations made with single antenna systems based on 802.11b/g, as well as in initial studies with 802.11n.
This paper investigates the performance of MIMO ad hoc networks that employ transmit diversity, as delivered by the Alamouti scheme, and/or spatial multiplexing, according to the Vertical Bell Labs Layered Space-Time system (V-BLAST). Both techniques are implemented in a discrete-event network simulator by focusing on their overall effect on the resulting signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the intended receiver. Unlike previous works that have studied fully-connected scenarios or have assumed simple abstractions to represent MIMO behavior, this paper evaluates MIMO ad hoc networks that are not fully connected by taking into account the effects of multiple antennas on the clear channel assessment (CCA) mechanism of CSMA-like medium access control (MAC) protocols. In addition to presenting a performance evaluation of ad hoc networks operating according to each individual MIMO scheme, this paper proposes simple modifications to the IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC to allow the joint operation of both MIMO techniques. Hence, each pair of nodes is allowed to select the best MIMO configuration for the impending data transfer. The joint operation is based on three operation modes that are selected based on the estimated SINR at the intended receiver and its comparision with a set of threshold values. The performance of ad hoc networks operating with the joint MIMO scheme is compared with their operation using each individual MIMO scheme and the standard SISO IEEE 802.11. Performance results are presented based on MAC-level throughput per node, delay, and fairness under saturated traffic conditions.
Predictable network performance is key in many low-power wireless sensor network applications. In this paper, we use machine learning as an effective technique for real-time characterization of the communication performance as observed by the MAC layer. Our approach is data-driven and consists of three steps: extensive experiments for data collection, offline modeling and trace-driven performance evaluation. From our experiments and analysis, we find that a neural networks prediction model shows best performance.
Next generation Wi-Fi networks are expected to support real-time applications that impose strict requirements on the packet transmission delay and packet loss ratio. Such applications form an essential target for the future Wi-Fi standard, namely IEEE 802.11be, the development process of which started in 2019. A promising way to provide efficient real-time communications in 802.11be networks requires some modification of the uplink OFDMA feature originally introduced in the IEEE 802.11ax amendment to the Wi-Fi standard. This feature allows the access point to reserve channel resources for upcoming urgent transmissions. The paper explains why uplink OFDMA random access of 802.11ax does not perfectly fit the requirements of real-time applications and proposes an easy-to-implement modification of the channel access rules for future 802.11be networks. With extensive simulation, it is shown that this modification together with a new resource allocation algorithm outperforms the existing ways to support real-time applications, especially for a heavy load and a high number of users. In particular, they provide extremely low delays for real-time traffic, while the throughput for non-real-time traffic is reduced insignificantly.
Support of real-time applications that impose strict requirements on packet loss ratio and latency is an essential feature of the next generation Wi-Fi networks. Initially introduced in the 802.11ax amendment to the Wi-Fi standard, uplink OFDMA seems to be a promising solution for supported low-latency data transmission from the numerous stations to an access point. In this paper, we study how to allocate OFDMA resources in an 802.11ax network and propose an algorithm aimed at providing the delay less than one millisecond and reliability up to 99.999% as required by numerous real-time applications. We design a resource allocation algorithm and with extensive simulation, show that it decreases delays for real-time traffic by orders of magnitude, while the throughput for non-real-time traffic is reduced insignificantly.
The recently created IETF 6TiSCH working group combines the high reliability and low-energy consumption of IEEE 802.15.4e Time Slotted Channel Hopping with IPv6 for industrial Internet of Things. We propose a distributed link scheduling algorithm, called Local Voting, for 6TiSCH networks that adapts the schedule to the network conditions. The algorithm tries to equalize the link load (defined as the ratio of the queue length over the number of allocated cells) through cell reallocation. Local Voting calculates the number of cells to be added or released by the 6TiSCH Operation Sublayer (6top). Compared to a representative algorithm from the literature, Local Voting provides simultaneously high reliability and low end-to-end latency while consuming significantly less energy. Its performance has been examined and compared to On-the-fly algorithm in 6TiSCH simulator by modeling an industrial environment with 50 sensors.