Improving Performance of Association Control in IEEE 802.11ah-Based Massive IoT Networks

Abstract

With the rise of massive Internet-of-Things (mIoT) applications, the IEEE 802.11ah standard is gaining more attention for implementation in wireless networks. Unbalanced distribution of the traffic load among the access points (APs) is a problem that results in performance degradation of such networks, including packet loss and delay, which are essential for some mission-critical applications. In this article, we present a novel solution for user-AP association in IEEE 802.11ah networks. Assuming that the network is carrying complex traffic, we limit the number of devices associated with each AP to keep the blocking probability under the desired value. Also, two mechanisms are proposed to limit the delay of packets by restricting the number of stations associated with an AP and to determine the transmission range of APs for covering a specific number of stations. Our simulations demonstrate that the proposed method can enhance the throughput and energy efficiency in the network and also limit the blocking probability and delay of packets in the network by restricting the number of IoT devices associated with an AP. As a result, the proposed method facilitates ultrareliable low-latency communications (URLLCs) by limiting the number of associated stations in IEEE 802.11ah networks.