Design and Development of a Hybrid TDMA/CDMA MAC Protocol for Multimedia Wireless Networks

Abstract

A wireless local area network (WLAN) provides high bandwidth to users in a limited geographical area. This network faces certain challenges and constraints that are not imposed on their wired counterparts. They are: frequency allocation, interference and reliability, security, power consumption, human safety, mobility, connection to wired LAN,service area, handoff and roaming, dynamic configuration and the throughput. But the wireless medium relies heavily on the features of MAC protocol and the MAC protocol is the core of medium access control for WLANs. The available MAC protocols all have their own merits and demerits. In our research works, we propose a hybrid MAC protocol forWLAN. In the design, we have combined the merits of the TDMA and CDMA systems to improve the throughput of the WLAN in a picocellular environment. We have used the reservation and polling methods of MAC protocols to handle both the low and high data traffics of the mobile users. We have strictly followed the standards specified by IEEE 802.11 for WLANs to implement the designed MAC protocol.

We have simulated the hybrid TDMA/CDMA based MAC protocols combined with RAP (Randomly Addressed Polling) for Wireless Local Area Networks. We have developed a closed form mathematical expressions analytically for this protocol. We have also studied the power control aspects in this environment and we derived a closed form mathematical expressions analytically for this power control technique.

This hybrid protocol is capable of integrating different types of traffic (like CBR,VBR and ABR services) and compiles with the requirements of next-generation systems.The lower traffic arrival is dealt with the Random Access and the higher traffic arrival is with the Polling methods. This enables us to obtain higher throughput and lowmean delay performance compared to the contention-reservation-based MAC schemes. The protocol offers the ability to integrate different types of services in a flexible way by the use of multiple slots per frame, while CDMA allows multiple users to transmit simultaneously using their own codes. The RAP uses an efficient "back-off" algorithm to improve throughput at higher arrival rates of user's data. The performance is evaluated in terms of throughput, delay, and rejection rate using computer simulation.

A detailed simulation is carried out regarding the maximum number of users that each base station can support on a lossy channel. This work has analyzed the desired user's signal quality in a single cell CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) system in the presence of MAI (Multiple Access Interference). Earlier power control techniques were designed to assure that all signals are received with equal power levels. Since these algorithms are designed for a imperfect control of power, the capacity of the system is reduced for a given BER (Bit-Error Rate). We proposed an EPCM (Efficient Power Control Mechanism) based system capacity which is designed for the reverse link (mobile to base station) considering the path loss, log-normal shadowing and Rayleigh fading.

We have simulated the following applications for the further improvement of the performance of the designed MAC protocol:Designed protocol is tested under different traffic conditions.

The protocol is tested for multimedia traffic under application oriented QoS requirements. Buffer Management and resource allocation. Call Admission Control (hand-offs, arrival of new users). The adaptability to the variable nature of traffic.The propagation aspects in the wireless medium.

The proposed MAC protocol has been simulated and analysed by using C++/MATLAB Programming in IBM/SUN-SOLARIS UNIX environment. The results were plotted using MATLAB software. All the functions of the protocol have been tested by an analysis and also by simulation.

Call admission control function of the protocol has been tested by simulation and analysis in a multimedia wireless network topology and from analysis we found that at low traffic the throughput is high and at high traffic the throughput is kept constant at a reasonable high value. The simulation results also justify/ coordinate the analysis results.

Dynamic channel allocation function of the protocol was tested and analysed and the coordinated results show that at low traffic, high throughput and at high traffic the throughput is constant.

Buffer management function of the protocol simulation shows the results that the packet loss can be controlled to a minimum by adjusting the buffer threshold level at any traffic conditions. Maintenance of data transfer during the hand-offs function was simulated and the results show that the blocked calls are less during low traffic and at high traffic the blocked calls can be kept constant at low value. Thus, the proposed model aimed at having high throughput, high spectral efficiency, low delay, moderate BER and moderate blocking probability. We have considered a pico cell with a maximum of several users and studied the power efficiency of combined channel coding and modulation with perfect power controlled CDMA system. Thus our simulation of the "software radio" has flexibility in choosing the proper channel coders dynamically depending upon the variations of AWGN channel.