Design and analysis of an algorithm for fair service in error-prone wireless channels

• Published in: Wireless networks Vol. 6; no. 4; pp. 323 - 343
• Main Authors: Lu, Songwu, Thyagarajan Nandagopal, Vaduvur Bharghavan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Nature B.V 01.09.2000
• Subjects: Algorithms; Bandwidths; Channels; Data transmission; Decoupling; Queueing; Real time; Scheduling; Studies; Time lag; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 1022-0038; 1572-8196
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1019158102489

In order to support diverse communication-intensive real-time and non-real-time data flows over a scarce, varying and shared wireless channel with location-dependent and bursty errors, we define a service model that has the following characteristics: short-term fairness among flows which perceive a clean channel, long-term fairness for flows with bounded channel error, worst-case delay bounds for packets, short-term throughput bounds for flows with clean channels and long-term throughput bounds for all flows with bounded channel error, expanded schedulable region, and support for both delay sensitive and error sensitive data flows. We present the wireless fair service algorithm, and show through both analysis and simulation that it achieves the requirements of the service model in typical wireless network environments. The key aspects of the algorithm are the following: (a) an enhanced fair queueing based service scheme that supports decoupling of delay and bandwidth, (b) graceful service compensation for lagging flows and graceful service degradation for leading flows, (c) support for real-time delay sensitive flows as well as non-real-time error sensitive flows, and (d) an implementation within the framework of the simple and robust CSMA/CA wireless medium access protocol. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]