Title: A link-adapted fragment and rate matching (FaRM) MAC protocol for wireless LANs

Authors: Kuei-Ping Shih; Chien-Min Chou; Chun-Chih Li; Li-Jie Cheng

Addresses: Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Tamkang University, Tamshui 251, Taipei, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Tamkang University, Tamshui 251, Taipei, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Tamkang University, Tamshui 251, Taipei, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Tamkang University, Tamshui 251, Taipei, Taiwan

Abstract: The paper proposes a fragment and rate matching (FaRM) MAC protocol for wireless LANs to resist the frequent change of channel quality so as to increase network throughput. In wireless transmissions, channel quality varies with time. The FaRM protocol estimates channel quality by detecting current signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) through frame exchanges. A finite state Markov chain (FSMC) is utilised to predict the variation in the channel conditions during the next frame transmission. According to the results obtained from the FSMC, the FaRM protocol enables the sender to dynamically select an appropriate transmission rate as well as an acceptable fragment length to transmit, such that the reliability and time of this transmission can be improved. As a result, the FaRM protocol can not only obtain better network throughput through the selection of the high transmission rate, but it can also increase the successful transmission rate by the determination of a suitable fragment length. Simulation results show that the FaRM protocol has better performance, higher transmission reliability, and lower transmission delay by FaRM in comparison to the related work.

Keywords: FSMC; finite state Markov chain; fragmentation; IEEE 802.11; MAC protocols; medium access control; multirate; wireless LANs; local area networks; WLANs; fragment matching; rate matching; channel quality; network throughput; signal-to-noise ratio; SNR; frame exchanges; transmission rate; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2014.065155

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2014 Vol.17 No.1, pp.1 - 17

Received: 19 Apr 2013
Accepted: 14 May 2013
Published online: 15 Oct 2014 *

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