Online association policies in IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Abstract— In this paper, we study the performance of clientAccess Point (AP) association policies in IEEE 802.11 based WLANs. In many scenarios, clients have a choice of APs with whom they can associate. We are interested in finding association policies which lead to optimal system performance. More specifically, we study the stability of different association policies as a function of the spatial distribution of arriving clients. We find for each policy the range of client arrival rates for which the system is stable. For small networks, we use Lyapunov function methods to formally establish the stability or instability of certain policies in specific scenarios. The RAT heuristic policy introduced in our prior work is shown to have very good stability properties when compared to several other natural policies. We also validate our analytical results by detailed simulation employing the IEEE 802.11 MAC.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: WIOPT
• Authors: Gaurav Kasbekar, Joy Kuri, Pavan Nuggehalli
• Keywords: Association Policies, IEEE 802.11, Ieee 802.11 Mac, WIOPT 2006, Wireless Networks