A Method to Improve Adaptability of the Minstrel MAC Rate Control Algorithm

The MAC (Media Access Control) layer protocol in wireless networks dynamically changes its transmission rate to adapt transmission to channel conditions. Such dynamic adaptations can improve perhop performance in wireless networks and therefore increase the network throughput. One of the best and commonly used rate control algorithms is Minstrel implemented in the MadWifi driver in Linux. In this paper we present a comprehensive evaluation of the Minstrel rate control adaptation. We show that network throughput could be further improved if the freshness level of throughput measurements currently used in Minstrel was dynamically adapted to channel conditions. This evaluation of the impact of measurement freshness on transmission rate adaptation was carried out in our platform for controllable and repeatable experiments.

[1]  Peter Steenkiste,et al.  Low-overhead channel-aware rate adaptation , 2007, MobiCom '07.

[2]  John C. Bicket,et al.  Bit-rate selection in wireless networks , 2005 .

[3]  Hari Balakrishnan,et al.  Cross-layer wireless bit rate adaptation , 2009, SIGCOMM '09.

[4]  A. Bruce Carlson,et al.  Communication systems: an introduction to signals and noise in electrical communication , 1975 .

[5]  Jadwiga Indulska,et al.  Evaluations of MadWifi MAC layer rate control mechanisms , 2010, 2010 IEEE 18th International Workshop on Quality of Service (IWQoS).

[6]  Konstanty Bialkowski,et al.  Design of testbed for wireless mesh networks , 2010, 2010 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[7]  Dina Katabi,et al.  Frequency-aware rate adaptation and MAC protocols , 2009, MobiCom '09.

[8]  Vaduvur Bharghavan,et al.  Robust rate adaptation for 802.11 wireless networks , 2006, MobiCom '06.