Abstract
802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) can support multiple data rates at physical layer by using adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) scheme. However, this differential data rate capability introduces a serious performance anomaly in WLANs. In a network comprising of several nodes with varying transmission rates, nodes with lower data rate (slow nodes) degrade the throughput of nodes with higher transmission rates (fast nodes). The primary source of this anomaly is the channel access mechanism of WLANs which ensures long term equal channel access probability to all nodes irrespective of their transmission rates. In this work, we investigate the use of adaptable width channelization to minimize the effect of this absurdity in performance. It has been observed that surplus channel-width due to lower transmission rate of slow nodes can be assigned to fast nodes connected to other access points (APs) which can substantially increase the overall throughput of the whole network. We propose a medium access control (MAC) layer independent anomaly prevention (MIAP) algorithm that assigns channel-width to nodes connected with different APs based on their transmission rate. We have modeled the effect of adaptable channelization and provide lower and upper bounds for throughput in various network scenarios. Our empirical results indicate a possible increase in network throughput by more than 20% on employing the proposed MIAP algorithm.
Highlights
The exponential increase in wireless enabled devices requires maximum capitalization of available resources in wireless local area networks (WLANs)
We propose MIAP algorithm that uses adaptable channelization to minimize the effect of medium access control (MAC) layer performance anomaly
In this work, we propose an efficient mechanism to mitigate the effect of MAC layer performance anomaly by using adaptable width channelization in WLANs
Summary
The exponential increase in wireless enabled devices requires maximum capitalization of available resources in WLANs. Some of the parameters like channel width and MAC layer functioning still remain static resulting in sub-optimal network performance. We propose MIAP algorithm that uses adaptable channelization to minimize the effect of MAC layer performance anomaly. Use of adaptable channelization is independent of MAC layer and do not require any modification in channel access mechanism It ensures that long term channel access probability of all the nodes remains equal and slow nodes do not suffer starvation. 2) Analysis of proposed algorithm by measuring its effect on essential network parameters like throughput, fairness of channel access mechanism and frame size.
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