Analysis of Quality of Service Support for Heterogeneous Networks
Kurzbeschreibung
One of todays challenges is to provide service guarantees in heterogeneous home networks. Service providers have means
to deliver prioritized data to the user. However, as soon as the data is received at the Home Gateway (HG) operators do not
have any control over perceived hop by hop transmission quality. This may result in bad perceived Quality of Experience
(QoE) by the users which should be avoided if the user has paid for the service delivery. Therefore a mechanism must be
provided which assures end to end QoS although several layer 2 (L2) technologies may be used on the data path. The
quality of the service delivery can be measured in terms of a Satisfied User Criteria (SuC), which reflects, e.g., the
perceived end to end data packet delay. A set of L2 technologies found in homes contains Wireless Local Area Networks,
Ethernet cables, and Powerline adapters whereas Plastic Optical Fiber (POF), and 60GHz technologies are emerging as
well. Furthermore HNs are hybrid mesh networks which combine infrastructure and client meshing and have at least a
single point of connection to the Internet via the HG. In case that data is exchanged between two clients of the bridged L2
HN the communication is peer to peer (P2P) and data packets usually must not be routed via the HG.
Today there are several projects focusing on the interworking of different technologies. The FP7 European Project
OMEGA investigates the performance of bridged home networks, which consist of technologies like Wireless Local
Area Networks (WLAN), Hybrid Wireless Optics (HWO) or Powerline Communications (PLC). The UpnP QoS
architecture provides a middleware targeted for the establishment of flows with QoS guarantees.
In this work the satisfied user criteria (SUC) of users within a heterogeneous home network should be analyzed. The
quantitative analysis of the SUC shall be done by means of analytical calculations using Signal Flow Graphs (SFG). This analysis should be performed with Matlab. This shall enable the evaluation of the SUC for at least two OMEGA
technologies. The SUC should regard QoS parameters like packet delay, jitter, throughput, and packet loss due to
multimedia session interruptions. The case when the QoS requirements of the application process are known in advance in
form of a traffic specification (TSpec) shall be compared with the case when the application provides only a priority or
even less information. In these situations the monitoring of the flows can give additional information.
The following work items shall be handled:
- Examine the state of the art for flows with QoS guarantees, e.g. UpnP QoS
- Provide a concept for the delivery of flows with QoS guarantees in heterogeneous home networks which uses a
either TSpecs, packet/device priority, or flow monitoring
- Describe the application process
- Model the multi-hop service delivery using SFGs for at least two technologies (Ethernet and 802.11s)
- The SFG model shall consider concurrent data transmissions
- Analytical evaluation of the QoS/SUC using Matlab
- Compare the perceived QoS in the cases that flow or packet based forwarding is used
- Description of the obtained results
- Final presentation (two intermediate presentations)
Letzte Änderung: 23-10-09
