Contention Window Size Research Articles

Analysis of a contention-based opportunistic spectrum access under general channel activity model

We investigate a distributed contention-based spectrum access scheme in cognitive radio networks where ON/OFF periods of the channel by primary users follow discrete phase (PH) type distributions. The main motivation for ON/OFF having PH distributions is that the channel activity has a more general behavior depending on the primary users’ traffic. In the past most other researchers assumed that ON/OFF periods of a channel follow a geometric distribution for the purpose of mathematical tractability even though this assumption is restrictive. We propose a distributed medium access control (MAC) scheme for the secondary users (SUs) which is characterized by a constant contention window size and a method to decide whether for each SU to participate in competition or not depending on the queueing delay of a head-of-line (HoL) packet. In order to investigate the performance of our proposed MAC protocol, we construct a two-dimensional Markov chain which incorporates both the proposed MAC scheme and the general channel activity. The resulting one-step transition probability matrix of the Markov chain has a very special structure. With the help of the censored Markov chain method, we provide a computationally efficient method to obtain the stationary distribution of the Markov chain. We then obtain the system capacity, which is defined as the maximum number of SUs that can be accommodated with a quality of service (QoS) guarantee on the packet dropping probability and the packet delay. Numerical examples show that the system capacity considerably depends on the distributions of ON/OFF periods and our proposed MAC scheme achieves a higher capacity than the existing one.

An Energy and Application Scenario Aware Active RFID Protocol

The communication protocol used is a key issue in order to make the most of the advantages of active RFID technologies. In this paper we introduce a carrier sense medium access data communication protocol that dynamically adjusts its back-off algorithm to best suit the actual application at hand. Based on a simulation study of the effect on tag energy cost, read-out delay, and message throughput incurred by some typical back-off algorithms in a CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance) active RFID protocol, we conclude that by dynamic tuning of the initial contention window size and back-off interval coefficient, tag energy consumption and read-out delay can be significantly lowered. We show that it is possible to decrease the energy consumption per tag payload delivery with more than 10 times, resulting in a 50% increase in tag battery lifetime. We also discuss the advantage of being able to predict the number of tags present at the RFID-reader as well as ways of doing it.

Efficient Retransmission Methods in Wireless MAC Protocol for Multicast

Recent studies on reliable wireless multicast have focused on sending acknowledgement packets from all member stations to the source. Although these studies provide methods of improving the reliability, there have not been any studies on retransmission methods for wireless multicast. Multicast packets are retransmitted based on the unicast transmission rule, which retransmits until all members successfully receive the packet. In this paper, an efficient retransmission method is proposed. The retransmission lasts until the target packet delivery ratio of each member is met. Moreover, the contention window size for retransmission is adjusted based on the reception status of the previous transmission. The performance of the proposed wireless multicast is evaluated by extensive simulations.

Fast performance assessment of IEEE 802.11-based wireless networks

In this paper, we introduce a brand new analytical perspective for analyzing and evaluating the IEEE 802.11-based networks. We identify a tightly-coupled relationship between the number of contending nodes and their contention window sizes in the networks. Based on the relationship, we propose a downsizing model for reducing the computational complexity and for improving the simulation performance in the evaluation of the IEEE 802.11-based networks. We first formally prove that the proposed model preserves the operational characteristics of the original networks in their downsized networks through well-known analytical frameworks, such as the models proposed by Bianchi (2000) [7], Calí et al. (2000) [2], and Hu et al. (2006) [8]. We then demonstrate that the proposed model speeds up the simulation by maximally two orders of magnitude. Even though the simulation shows some difference between the results from an original network and those in its corresponding downsized networks in a wide range of network sizes and traffic patterns, the difference is acceptable since it has minimal values of 1% in most cases and maximum values of 10% in a very few cases. We also present the effectiveness of both the downsizing model and the downsizing-model-based simulation in comparison with other performance models and simulation techniques. As the size and complexity of wireless networks are increasing nowadays, we vision that the new proposed model will be of great advantage in conducting fast and accurate packet-level wireless simulations, as well as being a helpful tool for performing the numerically tractable theoretical studies for extensive performance evaluations, such as determining the network-wide throughput or end-to-end delays.

Priority-Based Service-Differentiation Scheme for IEEE 802.15.4 Sensor Networks in Nonsaturation Environments

In this paper, we propose two mechanisms, i.e., 1) backoff exponent differentiation (BED) and 2) contention window differentiation (CWD), to provide multilevel differentiated services for IEEE 802.15.4 sensor networks. The beacon-enabled mode with the slotted carrier-sense multiple-access mechanism with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) algorithm is considered for nonsaturation. A mathematical model based on a discrete-time Markov chain is presented and analyzed to measure the performance of the proposed mechanisms. Numerical results show the effects of varying parameters. It shows that BED is better for service differentiation and channel utilization, regardless of the number of devices and the packet-arrival rate. It also shows that the throughput depends on the backoff exponent (BE), contention window (CW), and packet size and that the relative delay for successfully transmitted packets for BED is longer than that for CWD, which enables a higher relative gain for CWD. In addition, we obtain the number of unit backoff periods required to process all of the head packets of devices. Based on the numerical results, we obtain a criterion that provides guidelines for choosing a mechanism that is suitable for the objective function and determining the optimal length of the superframe to process the packets in the system.

Supporting Differentiated Service in Cognitive Radio Wireless Mesh Networks

The MAC layer protocols utilizing enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) in the recently published IEEE 802.11-2007 are able to provide differentiated QoS for different traffic types in wireless networks through varying the Arbitration Inter-Frame Spaces (AIFS) and contention window sizes. However, the performance of high priority traffic can be seriously degraded in the presence of strong noise over the wireless channels. The noise problem is further aggravated in wireless mesh networks when packets traverse multiple-hops from source to destination. The noise problem can be mitigated by distributing network traffic across multiple vacant channels to reduce the node density per transmission channel. Although multiple non-overlapped channels exist in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum, most IEEE 802.11-based multi-hop ad hoc networks today use only a single channel at anytime. As a result, these networks cannot fully exploit the aggregate bandwidth available in the radio spectrum provisioned by the standards. In this paper, we propose the Power-Controlled Rate-Adaptive MAC (CPCRA) protocol for single transceiver based Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) which combines adaptive modulation and coding with dynamic spectrum access. Simulation results demonstrate that CPCRA can achieve better performance in terms of lower delay and higher throughput.

Throughput Analysis of IEEE 802.11 DCF with Modified Binary Exponential Backoff in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In the design of wireless networks, the medium access protocols have a very large impact on the performance of the network. The IEEE 802.11 is widely accepted technology for the Wireless LANs and is used by wireless networks. This paper presents an analysis of the performance of Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) for IEEE 802.11 under modified Binary Exponential Backoff (BEB) Algorithm using Frequency Hoping Spread Spectrum (FHSS). In the modified algorithm, the size of Contention Window (CW) has been changed with the factor of for the first four collisions and the size becomes double thereafter in each subsequent collision. This paper also covers the effects of various parameters in modified BEB Algorithm.

Cross Layer Aware Adaptive Mac Based On Knowledge Based Reasoning for Cognitive Radio Computer Networks

In this paper we are proposing a new concept in MAC layer protocol design for Cognitive radio by combining information held by physical layer and MAC layer with analytical engine based on knowledge based reasoning approach. In the proposed system a cross layer information regarding signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) and received power are analyzed with help of knowledge based reasoning system to determine minimum power to transmit and size of contention window, to minimize backoff, collision, save power and drop packets. The performance analysis of the proposed protocol indicates improvement in power saving, lowering backoff and significant decrease in number of drop packets. The simulation environment was implement using OMNET++ discrete simulation tool with Mobilty framework and MiXiM simulation library.

Latency and Dropping Rate Analysis of IEEE 802.16e Handover

The IEEE 802.16 standard for mobile broadband wireless access specifies a contention based handover (HO) procedure for its mobile users. There are many HO parameters defined by the standard, which need a fine tuning in order to achieve a satisfactory communication performance. This article presents a precise mathematical model for calculating the impact of handover parameters and an error-prone radio channel over the performance of IEEE 802.16 handover procedure which uses Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) ranging codes. We analytically analyze the handover latency and handover connection dropping probability. The results are compared with experimental measurements conducted on a protocol prototype developed by using Specification and Description Language (SDL). The following parameters are investigated: values of the minimal and maximal contention window size, number of transmission allocations per frame, number of available CDMA ranging codes, timers and maximum retransmission limits used in the processes of ranging, basic capabilities negotiation and registration. We have found that all parameters need to be carefully adjusted in accordance to the network conditions: number of stations performing handover at a same time, WiMAX physical layer working parameters, and frame-error rate in the uplink and downlink radio channel.

Collision-Aware Backoff Mechanisms for IEEE 802.11 WLANs

The distributed coordination function (DCF) is the most widely deployed medium access control (MAC) protocol for IEEE 802.11 WLANs. It is a carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme which employs a binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm to reduce the collision probability. In this paper we propose a novel backoff algorithm, collision-aware backoff mechanism (CABM), which dynamically selects a suitable contention window size according to the contention level of current network. A contention level is separately estimated by each station depending on unsuccessful frame transmission ratios. However, frame losses can result from not only collisions but also link errors. If the bit error rate (BER) of a channel is available, CABM can be enhanced by a more accurate estimation of collision probability. The enhanced variant, CABM+, is also proposed for improving the system performance in an error-prone channel. Simulation results show that our schemes outperform the standard protocol in terms of the collision probability and system throughput, especially when the number of contending stations is large.

Detection of selfish behavior in wireless ad hoc networks based on CUSUM algorithm

The cumulative sum (CUSUM) algorithm is proposed to detect the selfish behavior of a node in a wireless ad hoc network. By tracing the statistics characteristic of the backoff time between successful transmissions, a wireless node can distinguish if there is a selfish behavior in the wireless network. The detection efficiency is validated using a Qualnet simulator. An IEEE 802.11 wireless ad hoc network with 20 senders and 20 receivers spreading out randomly in a given area is evaluated. The well-behaved senders use minimum contention window size of 32 and maximum contention window size of 1 024, and the selfish nodes are assumed not to use the binary exponential strategy for which the contention window sizes are both fixed as 16. The transmission radius of all nodes is 250 m. Two scenarios are investigated: a single-hop network with nodes spreading out in 100 m×100 m, and all the nodes are in the range of each other; and a multi-hop network with nodes spreading out in 1 000 m×1 000 m. The node can monitor the backoff time from all the other nodes and run the detection algorithms over those samples. It is noted that the threshold can significantly affect the detection time and the detection accuracy. For a given threshold of 0.3 s, the false alarm rates and the missed alarm rates are less than 5%. The detection delay is less than 1.0 s. The simulation results show that the algorithm has short detection time and high detection accuracy.

Cross-Layer Performance Analysis for CSMA/CA Protocols: Impact of Imperfect Sensing

In this paper, the performance of carrier-sense multiple access (CSMA)/collision-avoidance (CA) protocols in the presence of carrier-sensing errors is analyzed. Two types of carrier-sensing errors, i.e., false alarm and miss-detection, are considered, and their impact on the system performance is analyzed using a new CSMA/CA model based on a Markov chain capturing the sensing error at the physical layer. The system throughput and delay as functions of the sensing error probabilities, as well as other CSMA/CA parameters, are obtained, and their sensitivity with respect to a key physical-layer parameter, i.e., the sensing threshold, is analyzed for commonly used energy detectors or matched filters. It is shown that the throughput and delay sensitivity heavily depends on the ratio of the contention window size W to the frame length L, and the throughput is sensitive to the design of the sensing threshold when the ratio W/L is either small or large. The result provides guidelines about how to operate CSMA/CA considering imperfect sensing at the physical layer.

History Based Contention Window Control in IEEE 802.11 MAC Protocol in Error Prone Channel

Problem statement: IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is one of the most implemented protocols in this network. The IEEE 802.11 controls the access to the share wireless channel within competing stations. The IEEE 802.11 DCF doubles the Contention Window (CW) size for decreasing the collision within contending stations and to improve the network performances but it is not good for error prone channel because the sudden CW rest to CWmin may cause several collisions. Approach: The research to date has tended to focus on the current number of active stations that needs complex computations. A novel backoff algorithm is presented that optimizes the CW size with take into account the history of packet lost. Results: Finally, we compare the HBCWC with IEEE 802.11 DCF. The simulation results have shown 24.14, 56.71 and 25.33% improvement in Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), average end to end delay and throughput compared to the IEEE 802.11 DCF. Conclusion: This study showed that monitoring the last three channel status achieve better delay and throughput that can be used for multimedia communications.

A new IEEE 802.11 DCF utilizing freezing experiences in backoff interval and its saturation throughput

IEEE 802.11 defines distributed coordination function (DCF), which is characterized by CSMA/CA and binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm. Most modifications on DCF so far have focused on updating of the contention window (CW) size depending on the outcome of own frame transmission without considering freezing periods experienced in the backoff interval. We propose two simple but novel schemes which effectively utilize the number of freezing periods sensed during the current backoff interval. The proposed schemes can be applied to DCF and its family, such as double increment double decrement (DIDD). Saturation throughput of the proposed schemes is analyzed by means of Bianchi's Markovian model. Computer simulation validates the accuracy of the analysis. Numerical results based on IEEE 802.11b show that up to about 20% improvement of saturation throughput can be achieved by combining the proposed scheme with conventional schemes when applied to the basic access procedure.

Cross-Layer Scheme to Control Contention Window for Per-Flow in Asymmetric Multi-Hop Networks

The IEEE 802.11 MAC standard for wireless ad hoc networks adopts Binary Exponential Back-off (BEB) mechanism to resolve bandwidth contention between stations. BEB mechanism controls the bandwidth allocation for each station by choosing a back-off value from one to CW according to the uniform random distribution, where CW is the contention window size. However, in asymmetric multi-hop networks, some stations are disadvantaged in opportunity of access to the shared channel and may suffer severe throughput degradation when the traffic load is large. Then, the network performance is degraded in terms of throughput and fairness. In this paper, we propose a new cross-layer scheme aiming to solve the per-flow unfairness problem and achieve good throughput performance in IEEE 802.11 multi-hop ad hoc networks. Our cross-layer scheme collects useful information from the physical, MAC and link layers of own station. This information is used to determine the optimal Contention Window (CW) size for per-station fairness. We also use this information to adjust CW size for each flow in the station in order to achieve per-flow fairness. Performance of our cross-layer scheme is examined on various asymmetric multi-hop network topologies by using Network Simulator (NS-2).

Dynamic Contention Window Control Scheme in IEEE 802.11e EDCA-Based Wireless LANs

In the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol, access points (APs) are given the same priority as wireless terminals in terms of acquiring the wireless link, even though they aggregate several downlink flows. This feature leads to a serious throughput degradation of downlink flows, compared with uplink flows. In this paper, we propose a dynamic contention window control scheme for the IEEE 802.11e EDCA-based wireless LANs, in order to achieve fairness between uplink and downlink TCP flows while guaranteeing QoS requirements for real-time traffic. The proposed scheme first determines the minimum contention window size in the best-effort access category at APs, based on the number of TCP flows. It then determines the minimum and maximum contention window sizes in higher priority access categories, such as voice and video, so as to guarantee QoS requirements for these real-time traffic. Note that the proposed scheme does not require any modification to the MAC protocol at wireless terminals. Through simulation experiments, we show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Transmission History Based Distributed Adaptive Contention Window Adjustment Algorithm Cooperating with Automatic Rate Fallback for Wireless LANs

This paper proposes and investigates a distributed adaptive contention window adjustment algorithm based on the transmission history for wireless LANs called the transmission-history-based distributed adaptive contention window adjustment (THAW) algorithm. The objective of this paper is to reduce the transmission delay and improve the channel throughput compared to conventional algorithms. The feature of THAW is that it adaptively adjusts the initial contention window (CWinit) size in the binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm used in the IEEE 802.11 standard according to the transmission history and the automatic rate fallback (ARF) algorithm, which is the most basic algorithm in automatic rate controls. This effect is to keep CWinit at a high value in a congested state. Simulation results show that the THAW algorithm outperforms the conventional algorithms in terms of the channel throughput and delay, even if the timer in the ARF is changed.

Differentiated CW Policy and Strict Priority Policy for Location-Independent End-to-End Delay in Multi-Hop Wireless Mesh Networks

We investigate delay analysis of multi-hop wireless mesh network (WMN) where nodes have multi-channel and multiple transceivers to increase the network capacity. The functionality of the multi-channel and multiple transceivers allows the whole WMN to be decomposed into disjoint zones in such a way that i) nodes in a zone are within one-hop distance, and relay node and end nodes with different CWmins contend to access the channel based on IEEE 802.11e EDCA, ii) different channels are assigned to neighbor zones to prevent the hidden node problem, iii) relay nodes can transmit and receive the packets simultaneously by multi-channel and multiple transceivers. With this decomposition of the network, we focus on the delay at a single zone and then the end-to-end delay can be obtained as the sum of zone-delays. In order to have the location-independent end-to-end delay to the gateway regardless of source nodes' locations, we propose two packet management schemes, called the differentiated CW policy and the strict priority policy, at each relay node where relay packets with longer hop count are buffered in higher priority queues according to their experienced hop count. For the differentiated CW policy, a relay node adopts the functionality of IEEE 802.11e EDCA where a higher priority queue has a shorter minimum contention window. We model a typical zone as a one-hop IEEE 802.11e EDCA network under non-saturation condition where priority queues have different packet arrival rates and different minimum contention window sizes. First, we find the PGF (probability generating function) of the HoL-delay of packets at priority queues in a zone. Second, by modeling each queue as M/G/1 queue with the HoL-delay as a service time, we obtain the packet delay (the sum of the queueing delay and the HoL-delay) of each priority queue in a zone. Third, the average end-to-end delay of packet generated at end node in each zone is obtained by summing up the packet delays at each zone. For the strict priority policy, we regard a relay node as a single queueing system with multiple priority queues where relay packets in priority queues are served in the order of strict priority. Relay node has smaller CWmin than end node has and relay node competes with end nodes in a zone. Using the PGF of HoL-delay of packet at relay node and end node, we obtain the packet delay in a zone. The average end-to-end delay to the gateway generated at end node in each zone is obtained. Finally, for both the differentiated CW policy and strict priority policy, by equating all end-to-end delays to be approximately equal, we find the minimum contention window sizes of each priority queue numerically by trial and error method so that end-to-end delays of packets are almost equal regardless of their source's location, respectively. Numerical results show that proposed two methods obtain almost same end-to-end delay of packets regardless of their generated locations and our analytical results are shown to be well matched with the simulation results.

Enhancement of CSMA/CA and Network Coding in Single-Relay Multi-User Wireless Networks

Network coding is a promising technique for improving system performance in wireless multihop networks. In this paper, the throughput and fairness in single-relay multi-user wireless networks are evaluated. The carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol and network coding are used in the medium access control (MAC) sublayer in such networks. The fairness of wireless medium access among stations (STAs), the access point (AP), and the relay station (RS) results in asymmetric bidirectional flows via the RS; as a result the wireless throughput decreases substantially. To overcome this problem, an autonomous optimization of minimum contention window size is developed for CSMA/CA and network coding to assign appropriate transmission opportunities to both the AP and RS. By optimizing the minimum contention window size according to the number of STAs, the wireless throughput in single-relay multi-user networks can be improved and the fairness between bidirectional flows via the RS can be achieved. Numerical analysis and computer simulations enable us to evaluate the performances of CSMA/CA and network coding in single-relay multi-user wireless networks.

MODELING HIDDEN NODES COLLISIONS IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS: ANALYSIS APPROACH

This paper studied both types of collisions. In this paper, we show that advocated solutions for coping with hidden node collisions are unsuitable for sensor networks. We model both types of collisions and derive closed-form formula giving the probability of hidden and visible node collisions. To reduce these collisions, we propose two solutions. The first one based on tuning the carrier sense threshold saves a substantial amount of collisions by reducing the number of hidden nodes. The second one based on adjusting the contention window size is complementary to the first one. It reduces the probability of overlapping transmissions, which reduces both collisions due to hidden and visible nodes. We validate and evaluate the performance of these solutions through simulations.