Abstract
Wireless technologies are being used in various applications for their ease of deployment and inherent capabilities to support mobility. Most wireless standards supports multiple data rates that may vary between few Mbps to few Gbps. Reaching the maximum supported data rate is what most application seek for. Nevertheless, the choice of data rates is very closely related to the quality of communication links and their stability. IEEE 802.11 standard introduced multi-rate support, since then, a lot of research has been done on rate adaptation, dealing with the different parameters that lead to an estimation of the channel conditions and the metrics that affect the network performance. In this paper, we present some of the popular rate adaptation schemes and summarize their characteristics. We categorize them as well into different categories according to their design and functionalities in terms of the strategies that are used to estimate channel conditions and decision making. We implemented some algorithms from the different categories in the network simulator NS-3 in order to evaluate their performance under different scenarios in Ad hoc and infrastructure modes. We present the lessons learned as well as our insights for future research work that can enhance the current approaches in the literature.
Highlights
Wireless communication technologies are a very attractive solution for establishing connectivity between mobile nodes with minimal cable deployment
Rate adaptation algorithms help wireless networks achieve better performance by selecting the most suitable modulation and coding schemes (MCS), depending on the channel state. These algorithms are rarely specified in the wireless standards and they are left for the constructors to implement
We have presented several rate adaptation algorithms and grouped them into different categories according to the way they function
Summary
Wireless communication technologies are a very attractive solution for establishing connectivity between mobile nodes with minimal cable deployment. The communication links should be of very good quality and stable in order to reach these data rates This is a very challenging aspect to guarantee under mobility and in the presence of interference. Rate Adaptation is one of the key aspects of the functionalities of IEEE 802.11’s physical layer It works by assessing the channel conditions and taking a decision to adapt the transmission rate by selecting a combination of transmission features, such as the modulation and coding schemes (MCS), guard interval, and channel width. (ii) evaluation through simulation of the performance of four different rate adaptation algorithms under different scenarios highlighting the impact of mobility and interference in Ad hoc and infrastructure modes using NS-3 simulator, and (iii) presenting the lessons learned as well as our insights for future research work that can enhance existing approaches.
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