Towards voice/video application support in 802.11 e WLANs: A model-based admission control algorithm

摘要

Supporting emergent voice/video applications in all wireless technologies is a requirement in the Next Generation Network (NGN) where Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) is a main component. For this type of applications, QoS needs to be fully maintained in order to assure user satisfaction. Actually, QoS control in 802.11e WLANs to support real time voice/video services remains an open problem. All the solutions that only aim to enhance the performance of the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism cannot resolve the performance degradation problem once the channel becomes saturated. Hence, an efficient admission control scheme in EDCA is the key to guarantee the QoS required by voice/video services in WLANs. In this paper, we propose a model-based admission control algorithm that is located within the QoS Access Point (QAP). An accurate analytical model is used to predict the QoS metrics that can be achieved once a new flow is introduced in the WLAN. Based on this prediction and on the QoS constraints of already admitted (active) flows as well as of the new flow, the QAP takes the appropriate decision for the new flow. The proposed admission control scheme is fully compatible with . the legacy 802.1 le EDCA MAC protocol. It is validated numerically and through simulations using several realistic usage scenarios.