Packet Scheduling and Admission Control for QoS Provisioning in Integrated IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.16 Mesh Mode

Abstract

The IEEE 802.11e standard defines the HCF, which can improve the QoS support in 802.11 networks. On the other hand, the IEEE 802.16 is a metropolitan area technology, which can provide QoS per each connection. However, its mesh mode loosely supports QoS per each packet. These two techniques may be integrated to cover a typical urban area. This integration should be such that the minimum QoS requirements of traffic streams traversing the mesh structure of 802.16 can be provided. For this purpose, a new framework for integration of these two standards is presented in this research. It includes a scheduling algorithm and an admission control mechanism for uplink. As such, the minimum QoS requirements of traffic streams are provisioned by introducing a heuristic scheduling algorithm. Besides, an admission control procedure is used to provide fairness among the traffic types as well. The scheduling algorithm for downlink traffic is also provided. We evaluate this framework by simulating a compound network under different traffic conditions and investigate its performance against increasing the number of mobile terminals.