The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Service differentiation in multihop wireless packet networks
Author:	Onat, Ilker
View Online:	njit-etd2003-097 (viii, 33 pages ~ 2.6 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Electrical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Papavassiliou, Symeon (Committee chair) Ott, Teunis J. (Committee member) Niver, Edip (Committee member) Zakrevski, Lev A. (Committee member)
Date:	2003-08
Keywords:	Multihop wireless packet networks Link layer scheduling MAC layer prioritization
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	This work explores the potential of link layer scheduling combined with MAC layer prioritization for providing service differentiation in multihop wireless packet networks. As a result of limited power, multihop characteristic and mobility, packet loss ratio in wireless ad hoc networks tends to be high compared to wireline and one-hop mobile data networks. Therefore, for wireless ad hoc networks, DiffServ-like distributed service differentiation schemes are more viable than hard QoS solutions, which are mainly designed for wireline networks. The choice and implementation of proper queuing and scheduling methods, which determine how packets will use the channel when bandwidth becomes available, contributes significantly to this differentiation. Due to the broadcast nature of wireless communication, media access is one of the main resources that needs to be shared among different flows. Thus, one can design and implement algorithms also at MAC level for service differentiation. In this study, in addition to the scheduling discipline, IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function is used to increase the media access probability of a specific class of traffic. It is shown that the service requirements of a class can be better met using this two level approach compared to the cases where either of these schemes used alone.