AL-FEC Wireless Rate Adaptation for WiFi Multicast
Isaac Osunkunle · 2018
Modern wireless systems utilize rate adaptation to maximize transmission efficiency and throughput. Considering Wi-Fi networks, a widely deployed rate adaptation algorithm is the Minstrel algorithm [1]. It has been shown that introducing application layer forward error correction (AL-FEC) can improve the efficiency of wireless communications [2]. Also, using multicast for Wi-Fi streaming has been shown by [3] and [4] as an effective method of improving packet delivery for video applications. However, [3] and [4] do not consider the opportunity to use a more complex Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) for the packet transmissions. This research work proposes an extension to the Minstrel algorithm, which considers the presence of AL-FEC on the system. An end-to-end algorithm is proposed which continuously tracks the MCS values selected by Minstrel, and determines a more efficient MCS which takes advantage of AL-FEC capabilities of the client.