A frame aggregation scheduler for QoS-sensitive applications in IEEE 802.11n WLANs

The IEEE 802.11n standard promises to extend todays most popular WLAN standard by significantly increasing reach, reliability, and throughput. Ratified on september 2009, this standard defines many new physical and medium access control (MAC) layer enhancements. These enhancements aim to provide a data transmission rate of up to 600 Mbps. The frame aggregation mechanism of 802.11n MAC layer can improve the efficiency of channel utilization by reducing the protocol overheads. In this paper we investigate the effect of frame aggregation on the support of voice and video applications in wireless networks. We also propose a new frame aggregation scheduler that considers specific QoS requirements for multimedia applications. We dynamically adjust the aggregated frame size based on frame's access category defined in 802.11e standard.

[1]  Dan Keun Sung,et al.  Effect of Frame Aggregation on the Throughput Performance of IEEE 802.11n , 2008, 2008 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference.

[2]  Hsiao-Hwa Chen,et al.  IEEE 802.11n MAC frame aggregation mechanisms for next-generation high-throughput WLANs , 2008, IEEE Wireless Communications.

[3]  Sunghyun Choi,et al.  Fragmentation / Aggregation Scheme for Throughput Enhancement of IEEE 802 . 11 n WLAN , 2006 .

[4]  Christoph Lindemann,et al.  Understanding IEEE 802.11n multi-hop communication in wireless networks , 2011, 2011 International Symposium of Modeling and Optimization of Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks.

[5]  Xuemin Shen,et al.  Supporting voice and video applications over IEEE 802.11n WLANs , 2009, Wirel. Networks.

[6]  Sunghyun Choi,et al.  IEEE 802.11 e contention-based channel access (EDCF) performance evaluation , 2003, IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2003. ICC '03..

[7]  Ken Chan,et al.  Error-Sensitive Adaptive Frame Aggregation in 802.11n WLAN , 2010, WWIC.

[8]  Bernhard Walke,et al.  The IEEE 802.11 universe , 2010, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[9]  Vincent W. S. Wong,et al.  WSN01-1: Frame Aggregation and Optimal Frame Size Adaptation for IEEE 802.11n WLANs , 2006, IEEE Globecom 2006.

[10]  Subramaniam Shamala,et al.  An Enhanced A-MSDU Frame Aggregation Scheme for 802.11n Wireless Networks , 2012, Wirel. Pers. Commun..

[11]  John G. Apostolopoulos,et al.  Video Streaming: Concepts, Algorithms, and Systems , 2002 .

[12]  Kai-Ten Feng,et al.  Design of MAC-defined aggregated ARQ schemes for IEEE 802.11n networks , 2011, Wirel. Networks.

[13]  Chih-Yu Wang,et al.  IEEE 802.11n MAC Enhancement and Performance Evaluation , 2009, Mob. Networks Appl..

[14]  T Selvam,et al.  A frame aggregation scheduler for IEEE 802.11n , 2010, 2010 National Conference On Communications (NCC).