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Improving IEEE 802.11 WLAN: QoS and Throughput Perspective. Sunghyun Choi, Ph.D. Assistant Professor School of Electrical Engineering Seoul National University E-mail: schoi@snu.ac.kr URL: http://ee.snu.ac.kr/~schoi. Introduction to My Group in SNU.
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Improving IEEE 802.11 WLAN: QoS and Throughput Perspective Sunghyun Choi, Ph.D. Assistant Professor School of Electrical Engineering Seoul National University E-mail: schoi@snu.ac.kr URL: http://ee.snu.ac.kr/~schoi
Introduction to My Group in SNU • Multimedia & Wireless Networking Lab. (MWNL) • Within School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University • Started September 2003 • One of the youngest groups in SoEE, SNU • 1 (+2) Ph.D. & 3 masters students
Introduction to My Group in SNU (Cont’d) • Working on WLAN MAC and around • Resource management – power, rate, … • QoS & mobility • TCP/UDPover WLAN • 4G wireless network • Cross-layer design • (Sensor networks)
Contents • Introduction • QoS provisioning • Throughput enhancement • Conclusion
Introduction to IEEE 802.11 WLAN • Wireless Ethernet with comparable speed • Supports up to 11 and/or 54 Mbps within >100 m range • Enable (indoor) wireless and mobile high-speed networking • Runs at unlicensed bands at 2.4GHz and 5GHz • Connectionless MAC and multiple PHYs
Limitations of Current 802.11 • Lack of QoS support • Best-effort service with contention-based MAC • Low throughput due to large overhead • < 5 Mbps throughput at 11 Mbps 802.11b link • My group is currently working on improving both aspects • Will show only preliminary results here
Emerging IEEE 802.11e MAC • New draft standard for QoS provisioning • Expected to be finalized by early next year • Defining a new MAC backward compatible with the legacy MAC • Legacy 802.11 MAC – DCF (+ PCF) • 802.11e MAC – HCF with two access mechanisms • Controlled channel access • Contention-based channel access (EDCA)
802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) • Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA)
802.11e Access Category (AC) • Access category (AC) as a virtual DCF • 4 ACs implemented within a QSTA to support 8 priorities • Multiple ACs contend independently • The winning AC transmits a frame
Differentiated Channel Access of 802.11e EDCA • Each AC contentds with • AIFS[AC] (instead of DIFS) and CWmin[AC] / CWmax[AC] (instead of CWmin / CWmax)
Simulation Results - DCF vs. EDCA • Delay comparison • 2 video (1.5 Mbps CBR), 4 voice (36.8 kbps CBR), 4 data (1 Mbps Poisson)
Our Software-Based Approach for RT Traffic Support • IEEE 802.11e is not available yet • Even if it becomes available, many existing legacy 802.11 APs will be there • Especially, for WISP with many deployed APs, replacing existing APs costs a lot of money • Software (or firmware) upgrade-based approach is very desirable at least in the short term
TCP/UDP TCP/UDP IP PHY MAC IP PHY MAC RT+NRT RT+NRT RT NRT Device Driver frame processing frame processing (a) Original Host AP driver (b) Modified Host AP driver System Architecture
Server Host AP Client switch Console Measurement Configuration • Linux + HostAP driver for Intersil chipsets • one RTP (1.448 Mbps CBR) + one FTP Implement dual queue
One-Way Delay of RTP Traffic Original Modified
Limitations and Future Work • Limitations of the current approach • Running on top of legacy MAC with a single FIFO queue • AP cannot prevent/control contention from stations • Downlink RT transmission could be severely delayed due to the uplink contentions • How to handle this situation is an on-going effort
IEEE 802.11n Initiative • A new standardization effort to achieve over 100 Mbps throughput over WLAN • Via both PHY and MAC enhancement • We are considering the MAC improvement for throughput enhancement
Frame Size Affects Throughput • 802.11 MAC/PHY have big fixed overheads • MAC header, IFSs, ACK, and Backoff • PLCP preamble & header
Theoretical Throughput for 54 Mbps Preferred Operation Range
Packet Size Statistics This statistics is from the measurement taken in the 802.11 standard meeting room in the morning of July 22nd 2003
Frame Aggregation • Aggregation of multiple frames in order to reduce the fixed overheads relatively! • Multiple frames are aggregated above the MAC SAP • The aggregated frame is transmitted via a data frame
Frame Formats Original With aggregation
Performance Measurement • Implement frame aggregation in real platform • Linux & Intersil-based platform (.11b) • Measure the throughput performance of UDP and TCP traffic • Note: Frame aggregation is only applied when there are multiple frames in the queue Traffic generator AP STA
Measurement Results - UDP • Throughput performance of packet aggregation with fixed rate UDP
Measurement Results - TCP • Throughput performance of packet aggregation with TCP
Summary and Future Work • Shown that frame aggregation is a good way to improve 802.11 MAC throughput • Via both analysis and measurements • Frame aggregation can be done above the MAC SAP very easily • Needs further measurements/simulations for more realistic scenarios
Concluding Remarks • IEEE 802.11 WLAN is becoming real popular these days • There is still a big room to improve the current 802.11 systems • Important to consider how any improved system co-exists with legacy systems