Evaluation of packet latency in single and multi-hop WiFi wireless networks
Kiran Anna, Mostafa A. Bassiouni · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2006
In this paper, we evaluate the packet latency performance of a new scheduler-based scheme that we have implemented on top of the p-persistent 802.11 MAC layer. We extended Cali's dynamic p-persistent 802.11 protocol from single class to multiple classes by means of a weighted fair queuing scheduler built on top of the MAC p-persistent layer. We used the NS2 simulator in the implementation and testing of our multiple-class scheduler and incorporated the scheduler-based architecture by modifying the NS2's 802.11 DCF implementation and the protocol stack of the wireless node. Our tests showed that AEDCF cannot maintain the same throughput differentiation ratios among different traffic classes under different loads. In contrast, the p-persistent Scheduler scheme maintains the desired differentiation ratios under different loads, gives higher total network throughput and provides easier tuning. We present detailed performance results of the scheduler-based architecture in terms of QoS differentiation and packet latency. All tests were implemented in NS2. The paper concentrates on single hop wireless networks and compares the scheduler-based scheme with AEDCF. The paper is concluded by a discussion on how to extend the evaluation to multi-hop wireless networks and examine the role of the routing layer and the MAC layer.