Medium Access Control in IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks
Author(s): Hiertz,G.
Communication Networks (ComNets) Research Group @ RWTH Aachen University
Contact: publications@comnets.rwth-aachen.de
Ph. D. Dissertation
, ABMT
68
,
p.
196
, ISBN: 978-3-86130-512-5
Wissenschaftsverlag Mainz,
Year: 2011
On page(s):196
ISBN: 978-3-86130-512-5
Abstract Standard 802.11 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has become the dominating solution for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). Its simple and robust medium access protocol has paved the way for a mass market that is expected to ship one billion IEEE 802.11 devices in 2011. From the beginning of its standardization in 1990 until September 2011 twenty amendments have extended IEEE 802.11 for various applications. Examples are support for Quality of Service (QoS) that enables Voice over IP (VoIP) over WLAN and Consumer Electronic (CE) related applications, an extension for car to car communication that helps to enable new safety features, and intelligent radio resource management that targets new spectrum. These amendments make IEEE 802.11 a truly ubiquitous solution that is used in industrial machinery, point-to-point links, CE devices, computers, cars, mobile phones and many more products. Until the introduction of its latest amendmentIEEE 802.11sWLANs are typically used to extend wired networks. In this case, the WLAN forms the last hop of a wired backhaul and the latter is needed to interconnect the central entities that bridge the wired to the wireless network. These entities, denoted as Access Point (AP), allow only for single-hop communication on the Wireless Medium (WM). To bring wireless network access to unserved areas requires the provisioning of wired backhaul, therefore. IEEE 802.11s fills this gap. It introduces mesh networking that brings wireless multihop communication. With IEEE 802.11s the infrastructure dependency of WLAN is cut and self-contained Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) of arbitrary topology can be formed. Furthermore, these IEEE 802.11s WMNs may serve as transparent backhaul for other, external networks. A data frames source and destination may be in- or outside of the WMN. Medium Access Control (MAC) layer based routing delivers the frame over multiple hops. The current medium access protocols of IEEE 802.11 have not been designed for this multi-hop communication, however. The thesis describes the new medium access protocol that IEEE 802.11s introduces. The protocol is based on distributed reservations that allow for scheduled access to the WM. It is derived from an invention that is used in standards for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs). The thesis outlines the authors inventions and the standards that apply it. The publicly available, event-driven protocol simulator Wireless Access Radio Protocol 2 (WARP2) is used to evaluate the performance of the invention and the new medium access protocol of IEEE 802.11s.
Author Keywords
IEEE 802.11; IEEE 802.11s; IEEE 802.15.5; WLAN Mesh; WPAN Mesh; Wireless Mesh Network; Mesh BSS; ECMA-368; ISO/IEC 26907; ISO/IEC 13156; DRP; MCCA; IEEE 802.11e; UWB MAC; MB-OFDM; Multiband OFDM Alliance; MBOA; WiMedia Alliance; Wi-Fi Alliance; WFA; Wi-Mesh Alliance; WiMA; WARP2; statistical evaluation; event driven simulation; ComNets; RWTH Aachen University; Philips Research; Standards
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Bibtex
@PHDTHESIS{DISS_GuidoRHiertz_2011
AUTHOR = {Hiertz,G.} ,
TITLE = {Medium Access Control in IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks} ,
YEAR = {2011} ,
MONTH = {Dec} ,
VOLUME = {68},
PAGES = {196},
PUBLISHER = {Wissenschaftsverlag Mainz},
ADDRESS = {Communication Networks (ComNets) Research Group @ RWTH Aachen University},
SERIES = {ABMT},
AFFILIATION = {Communication Networks (ComNets) Research Group @ RWTH Aachen University},
ISBN = {978-3-86130-512-5 },
KEYWORDS = {IEEE 802.11; IEEE 802.11s; IEEE 802.15.5; WLAN Mesh; WPAN Mesh; Wireless Mesh Network; Mesh BSS; ECMA-368; ISO/IEC 26907; ISO/IEC 13156; DRP; MCCA; IEEE 802.11e; UWB MAC; MB-OFDM; Multiband OFDM Alliance; MBOA; WiMedia Alliance; Wi-Fi Alliance; WFA; Wi-Mesh Alliance; WiMA; WARP2; statistical evaluation; event driven simulation; ComNets; RWTH Aachen University; Philips Research; Standards},
URL = {https://www.comnets.rwth-aachen.de}