Performance analysis of distributed resource reservation in IEEE 802.11e-based wireless networks

Guaranteeing quality of service (QoS) is one of the most critical challenges in IEEE 802.11-based wireless networks. This study proposes an analytical framework to evaluate hybrid medium access control (MAC) scheduling mechanisms with distributed resource reservation (RR), that was proposed for the IEEE 802.11e-enhanced distributed channel access protocol for guaranteeing QoS. The hybrid MAC scheduling mechanisms split the airtime into service intervals with contention-free period for QoS guaranteed real-time sessions (RTSNs), and contention access period for other traffic sessions. The distributed RR ensures that the resources are allocated to RTSNs without the support of a centralised controller-this makes it suitable for ad hoc networking applications. The proposed analytical framework models the QoS (i.e. delay and throughput) performance of RTSNs with dedicated resources in a distributed environment, and also estimates the overall capacity of the network. Moreover, the derived models can be used to investigate the impact of changes to individual system parameters, such as service interval or size of transmission opportunity. The simulation results show that the proposed analytical framework precisely models the QoS performance of RTSNs and predicts the optimum resource allocation for improved network capacity.