A Distributed End-to-End Reservation Protocol for IEEE 802.11-Based Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract--This paper presents an end-to-end reservation protocol for quality-of-service (QoS) support in the medium access control layer of wireless multihop mesh networks. It reserves periodically repeating time slots for QoS-demanding applications, while retaining the distributed coordination function (DCF) for best effort applications. The key features of the new protocol, called "distributed end-to-end allocation of time slots for real-time traffic (DARE), are distributed setup, interference protection, and scheduling of real-time data packets, as well as the repair of broken reservations and the release of unused reservations. A simulation-based performance study compares the delay and throughput of DARE with those of DCF and the priority-based enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) used in IEEE 802. 11e. In contrast to DCF and EDCA, DARE has a low, nonvarying delay and a constant throughput for each reserved flow.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: JSAC
• Authors: E. Carlson, Christian Prehofer, Christian Bettstetter, Holger Karl, Adam Wolisz
• Keywords: Distributed Coordination Function, End-to-end Reservation Protocol, JSAC 2006, Time Slots