Title: Service differentiation using priority-based MAC protocol in MANETs

Authors: Nityananda Sarma, Sukumar Nandi

Addresses: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Tezpur University, Tezpur 784 028, India. ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, India

Abstract: Multihop wireless network has emerged recently as an evolution of wireless network technology and is likely to be the integral part of future communication environment. In this context, support for quality of service (QoS) is becoming an inherent necessity, rather than an additional feature of the network. In this paper, we propose a priority-based variant of the IEEE 802.11 DCF for providing service differentiation at the MAC layer of MANETs. The channel access priorities are realised with a backoff timer selection scheme. Further, differentiating relayed traffic from self-generated traffic, improves both end-to-end QoS performance and overall network utilisation in multihop environments. A priority-based queue management and packet scheduling is implemented to improve the intra-node service differentiation. Performance analysis for single hop scenarios is done using a Markov chain model whose accuracy is validated through simulation. Furthermore, simulation studies in multihop scenarios show suitability of the proposed scheme to provide an enhanced level of service differentiation.

Keywords: mobile ad hoc networks; MANETs; quality of service; QoS; medium access control; real-time traffic; best-effort traffic; service differentiation; contention window selection; queue management; priority-based MAC; mobile networks; wireless networks; Markov chain modelling; simulation; packet scheduling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPT.2010.035383

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology, 2010 Vol.5 No.3, pp.115 - 131

Published online: 28 Sep 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article