Cross-layer design based hybrid MAC protocol for cognitive radio network

A minimal interrupted communication link setup is the primary objective of the MAC layer. The MAC layer is responsible for accessing the communication channel. At MAC, a control channel is used in the selection of collision free paths for data transfer. Therefore, the design of the control channel plays a pivotal role in achieving desired QoS in cognitive radio (CR) technology. Various schemes of control channel design help the CR network (CRN) to obtain better performance. The reported work focuses on a hybrid MAC protocol. The novelty of the scheme lies in the process of hybridization. A cross-layer framework is proposed for hybridization. The cross-layering has been done between network and MAC layer to achieve hybridization between different control channel design approaches. The broad categorization of control channel designs is between licensed in-band and dedicated unlicensed out-band approaches. In the in-band control channel design approach, the opportunistic use of data channel as control channel fulfills the decorum of CR technology. As soon as the primary user activity rises in the data channels, the in-band approach suffers from poor performance. On the other hand, the dedicated unlicensed out-band control channel design approach provides global coverage and all-time availability but suffers from channel saturation and intruder attacks. Interference in the control channel limits the use of out-band design. This motivates authors to develop a hybrid MAC protocol that can float between licensed in-band design and unlicensed out-band design to access the control channel. The hybridization is possible by sharing a primary user free channel list (PCL) among CR nodes. In conventional hybrid MAC protocols, the PCL is shared as a control beacon in the channel. Extra packet requirement as control beacon affects the performance of CR scenario. The proposed cross-layer design based hybrid MAC protocol avoids the need of an extra control beacon for PCL transmission. Further, the hybridization helps in achieving advantages of both in-band and out-band control channel design approaches. The simulation results show that the proposed hybrid MAC protocol performs satisfactorily in terms of packet delivery ratio, average throughput, average delay and control overhead. The performances are also tested in the worst scenarios.     

Analysis of a robust and energy efficient transmission scheduling protocol in single‐hop ad hoc networks

A fully connected one‐hop ad hoc network constitutes a basic unit for managing self‐organizing networks such as IEEE 802.11 and 802.15.3 networks. Since energy efficiency is a critical issue in ad hoc networks, we develop an energy‐saving framework that includes scheduling for node‐to‐node direct communication. The scheduling is performed by a coordinator that is selected by some simple rule. We enhance IEEE 802.11 protocol by using our proposed framework, and analyze its energy efficiency in transmitting and receiving data. Through mathematical analysis, we confirm that our enhanced protocol significantly saves energy compared to the IEEE 802.11 protocol. We also investigate the robustness of our algorithm by covering the cases of uncooperative users, system malfunctioning, and channel errors. The numerical results confirm that our protocol works well under these hostile environments and maintains its advantage over the conventional scheme. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种基于预测式公平队列调度算法的802.11e MAC层机制

在共享媒体的通信系统中,队列调度的公平性是很重要的。该文在研究了IEEE WLAN已有的各种队列调度算法的基础上,提出了一种预测式公平队列调度算法 (Predict Fair Queuing, PFQ),并结合IEEE 802.11e的EDCF(Enhanced Distributed Coordination Function)机制提出一种基于PFQ的新的MAC层协议P-EDCF(PFQ-based EDCF)。该协议通过引进PFQ算法来修改EDCF的优先级控制方式,提供一种公平、高效的接入机制。仿真结果表明,该机制很好地改善了EDCF的性能,为各种类型业务提供了公平的服务。