Effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake in IEEE 802.11 based ad hoc networks
01 Jul 2003-Vol. 1, Iss: 1, pp 107-123
TL;DR: It is shown that in some situations, the interference range is much larger than transmission range, where RTS/CTS cannot function well, and two independent solutions are proposed that can help IEEE 802.11 resolve most interference caused by large interference range.
Abstract: IEEE 802.11 MAC mainly relies on two techniques to combat interference: physical carrier sensing and RTS/CTS handshake (also known as “virtual carrier sensing”). Ideally, the RTS/CTS handshake can eliminate most interference. However, the effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake is based on the assumption that hidden nodes are within transmission range of receivers. In this paper, we prove using analytic models that in ad hoc networks, such an assumption cannot hold due to the fact that power needed for interrupting a packet reception is much lower than that of delivering a packet successfully. Thus, the “virtual carrier sensing” implemented by RTS/CTS handshake cannot prevent all interference as we expect in theory. Physical carrier sensing can complement this in some degree. However, since interference happens at receivers, while physical carrier sensing is detecting transmitters (the same problem causing the hidden terminal situation), physical carrier sensing cannot help much, unless a very large carrier sensing range is adopted, which is limited by the antenna sensitivity. In this paper, we investigate how effective is the RTS/CTS handshake in terms of reducing interference. We show that in some situations, the interference range is much larger than transmission range, where RTS/CTS cannot function well. Two independent solutions are proposed in this paper. One is a simple enhancement to the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. The other is to utilize directional antennas. Simulation results verify that the proposed schemes indeed can help IEEE 802.11 resolve most interference caused by large interference range.
Citations
More filters
••
28 Aug 2005TL;DR: This paper evaluates the ability of a wireless mesh architecture to provide high performance Internet access while demanding little deployment planning or operational management, and the usefulness of the highly connected mesh afforded by omni-directional antennas for robustness and throughput.
Abstract: This paper evaluates the ability of a wireless mesh architecture to provide high performance Internet access while demanding little deployment planning or operational management. The architecture considered in this paper has unplanned node placement (rather than planned topology), omni-directional antennas (rather than directional links), and multi-hop routing (rather than single-hop base stations). These design decisions contribute to ease of deployment, an important requirement for community wireless networks. However, this architecture carries the risk that lack of planning might render the network's performance unusably low. For example, it might be necessary to place nodes carefully to ensure connectivity; the omni-directional antennas might provide uselessly short radio ranges; or the inefficiency of multi-hop forwarding might leave some users effectively disconnected.The paper evaluates this unplanned mesh architecture with a case study of the Roofnet 802.11b mesh network. Roofnet consists of 37 nodes spread over four square kilometers of an urban area. The network provides users with usable performance despite lack of planning: the average inter-node throughput is 627 kbits/second, even though the average route has three hops.The paper evaluates multiple aspects of the architecture: the effect of node density on connectivity and throughput; the characteristics of the links that the routing protocol elects to use; the usefulness of the highly connected mesh afforded by omni-directional antennas for robustness and throughput; and the potential performance of a single-hop network using the same nodes as Roofnet.
817 citations
Additional excerpts
...This is consistent with existing observations [33]....
[...]
••
17 Aug 2008TL;DR: This paper presents ZigZag, an 802.11 receiver design that combats hidden terminals, a new form of interference cancellation that exploits asynchrony across successive collisions in order to bootstrap its decoding.
Abstract: This paper presents ZigZag, an 802.11 receiver design that combats hidden terminals. ZigZag's core contribution is a new form of interference cancellation that exploits asynchrony across successive collisions. Specifically, 802.11 retransmissions, in the case of hidden terminals, cause successive collisions. These collisions have different interference-free stretches at their start, which ZigZag exploits to bootstrap its decoding.ZigZag makes no changes to the 802.11 MAC and introduces no overhead when there are no collisions. But, when senders collide, ZigZag attains the same throughput as if the colliding packets were a priori scheduled in separate time slots. We build a prototype of ZigZag in GNU Radio. In a testbed of 14 USRP nodes, ZigZag reduces the average packet loss rate at hidden terminals from 72.6% to about 0.7%.
671 citations
Cites background from "Effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake ..."
...In a testbed of 14 USRP nodes, ZigZag reducestheaveragepacketlossrateathiddenterminalsfrom 72.6% to about 0.7%....
[...]
••
TL;DR: This paper proposes FlashLinQ - a synchronous peer-to-peer wireless PHY/MAC network architecture for distributed channel allocation that develops an analog energy-level based signaling scheme that enables SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio) based distributed scheduling.
Abstract: This paper proposes FlashLinQ--a synchronous peer-to-peer wireless PHY/MAC network architecture. FlashLinQ leverages the fine-grained parallel channel access offered by OFDM and incorporates an analog energy-level-based signaling scheme that enables signal-to-interference ratio (SIR)-based distributed scheduling. This new signaling mechanism, and the concomitant scheduling algorithm, enables efficient channel-aware spatial resource allocation, leading to significant gains over a CSMA/CA system using RTS/CTS. FlashLinQ is a complete system architecture including: 1) timing and frequency synchronization derived from cellular spectrum; 2) peer discovery; 3) link management; and 4) channel-aware distributed power, data rate, and link scheduling. FlashLinQ has been implemented for operation over licensed spectrum on a digital signal processor/ field-programmable gate array (DSP/FPGA) platform. In this paper, we present FlashLinQ performance results derived from both measurements and simulations.
451 citations
••
TL;DR: The interference models are presented in this survey from the perspective of the radio capture phenomenon, resulting in a unified view of interference models, which may be helpful when selecting the appropriate model for a given purpose.
Abstract: The recent increasing interest in ad hoc networks has motivated the study and development of interference models capable of capturing the intrinsic characteristics of this kind of network, such as the lack of a central coordination and the consequent distributed nature of some of the network functions (e.g., medium access control and routing protocols). As a consequence, a myriad of interference models for ad hoc networks can be found in the literature, that describe the effects of interference at different layers and with different levels of detail. Some of these models describe interference as a random process whose statistics depend mainly on physical layer parameters, and are better suited for the analysis of issues related to the physical layer. Other models focus on the effects of interference at higher layers, and are more appropriate when the analysis of network-related issues is of interest. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of interference models for wireless ad hoc networks, emphasizing their domains of application, illustrated with examples. The interference models are presented in this survey from the perspective of the radio capture phenomenon, resulting in a unified view of interference models, which may be helpful when selecting the appropriate model for a given purpose.
240 citations
••
23 Apr 2006TL;DR: This paper investigates the impacts of variable transmission ranges and receiver sensitivities for different channel rates and the impact of multihop forwarding as well as several other important factors, such as SINR, node topology, hidden/exposed terminal problems and bidirectional handshakes, on determining the optimum carrier sensing range to maximize the throughput.
Abstract: Physical carrier sensing is an effective mechanism of medium access control (MAC) protocols to reduce collisions in wireless networks, and the size of the carrier sensing range has a great impact on the system performance. Previous studies have shown that the MAC layer overhead plays an important role in determining the optimal carrier sensing range. However, variable transmission ranges and receiver sensitivities for different channel rates and the impact of multihop forwarding have been ignored. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of these factors as well as several other important factors, such as SINR (signal to interference plus noise ratio), node topology, hidden/exposed terminal problems and bidirectional handshakes, on determining the optimum carrier sensing range to maximize the throughput through both analysis and simulations. The results show that if any one of these factors is not addressed properly, the system performance may suffer a significant degradation. Furthermore, considering both multirate capability and carrier sensing ranges, we propose to use bandwidth distance product as a routing metric, which improves end-to-end throughput by up to 27% in the simulated scenario.
238 citations
References
More filters
•
15 Jan 1996
TL;DR: WireWireless Communications: Principles and Practice, Second Edition is the definitive modern text for wireless communications technology and system design as discussed by the authors, which covers the fundamental issues impacting all wireless networks and reviews virtually every important new wireless standard and technological development, offering especially comprehensive coverage of the 3G systems and wireless local area networks (WLANs).
Abstract: From the Publisher:
The indispensable guide to wireless communicationsnow fully revised and updated!
Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, Second Edition is the definitive modern text for wireless communications technology and system design. Building on his classic first edition, Theodore S. Rappaport covers the fundamental issues impacting all wireless networks and reviews virtually every important new wireless standard and technological development, offering especially comprehensive coverage of the 3G systems and wireless local area networks (WLANs) that will transform communications in the coming years. Rappaport illustrates each key concept with practical examples, thoroughly explained and solved step by step.
Coverage includes:
An overview of key wireless technologies: voice, data, cordless, paging, fixed and mobile broadband wireless systems, and beyond
Wireless system design fundamentals: channel assignment, handoffs, trunking efficiency, interference, frequency reuse, capacity planning, large-scale fading, and more
Path loss, small-scale fading, multipath, reflection, diffraction, scattering, shadowing, spatial-temporal channel modeling, and microcell/indoor propagation
Modulation, equalization, diversity, channel coding, and speech coding
New wireless LAN technologies: IEEE 802.11a/b, HIPERLAN, BRAN, and other alternatives
New 3G air interface standards, including W-CDMA, cdma2000, GPRS, UMTS, and EDGE
Bluetooth wearable computers, fixed wireless and Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS), and other advanced technologies
Updated glossary of abbreviations and acronyms, and a thorolist of references
Dozens of new examples and end-of-chapter problems
Whether you're a communications/network professional, manager, researcher, or student, Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, Second Edition gives you an in-depth understanding of the state of the art in wireless technologytoday's and tomorrow's.
17,102 citations
"Effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake ..." refers background in this paper
...• Interference range (Ri) is the range within which stations in receive mode will be ‘‘interfered with’’ by an unrelated transmitter and thus suffer a loss....
[...]
••
01 Oct 1994TL;DR: The modifications address some of the previous objections to the use of Bellman-Ford, related to the poor looping properties of such algorithms in the face of broken links and the resulting time dependent nature of the interconnection topology describing the links between the Mobile hosts.
Abstract: An ad-hoc network is the cooperative engagement of a collection of Mobile Hosts without the required intervention of any centralized Access Point. In this paper we present an innovative design for the operation of such ad-hoc networks. The basic idea of the design is to operate each Mobile Host as a specialized router, which periodically advertises its view of the interconnection topology with other Mobile Hosts within the network. This amounts to a new sort of routing protocol. We have investigated modifications to the basic Bellman-Ford routing mechanisms, as specified by RIP [5], to make it suitable for a dynamic and self-starting network mechanism as is required by users wishing to utilize ad hoc networks. Our modifications address some of the previous objections to the use of Bellman-Ford, related to the poor looping properties of such algorithms in the face of broken links and the resulting time dependent nature of the interconnection topology describing the links between the Mobile Hosts. Finally, we describe the ways in which the basic network-layer routing can be modified to provide MAC-layer support for ad-hoc networks.
6,877 citations
"Effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake ..." refers methods in this paper
...Routing protocol adopted is the DSDV [13] routing....
[...]
••
TL;DR: The busy-tone multiple-access mode is introduced and analyzed as a natural extension of CSMA to eliminate the hidden-terminal problem and results show that BTMA with hidden terminals performs almost as well as CSMA without hidden terminals.
Abstract: We consider a population of terminals communicating with a central station over a packet-switched multiple-access radio channel. The performance of carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) [1] used as a method for multiplexing these terminals is highly dependent on the ability of each terminal to sense the carrier of any other transmission on the channel. Many situations exist in which some terminals are "hidden" from each other (either because they are out-of-sight or out-of-range). In this paper we show that the existence of hidden terminals significantly degrades the performance of CSMA. Furthermore, we introduce and analyze the busy-tone multiple-access (BTMA) mode as a natural extension of CSMA to eliminate the hidden-terminal problem. Numerical results giving the bandwidth utilization and packet delays are shown, illustrating that BTMA with hidden terminals performs almost as well as CSMA without hidden terminals.
1,754 citations
"Effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake ..." refers background in this paper
...Thus, the hidden terminal problem may happen frequently [ 1 ]....
[...]
••
16 Jul 2001TL;DR: The question “Are large ad hoc networks feasible?” reduces to a question about the likely locality of communication in such networks, and it is shown that for total capacity to scale up with network size the average distance between source and destination nodes must remain small as the network grows.
Abstract: Early simulation experience with wireless ad hoc networks suggests that their capacity can be surprisingly low, due to the requirement that nodes forward each others' packets. The achievable capacity depends on network size, traffic patterns, and detailed local radio interactions. This paper examines these factors alone and in combination, using simulation and analysis from first principles. Our results include both specific constants and general scaling relationships helpful in understanding the limitations of wireless ad hoc networks.We examine interactions of the 802.11 MAC and ad hoc forwarding and the effect on capacity for several simple configurations and traffic patterns. While 802.11 discovers reasonably good schedules, we nonetheless observe capacities markedly less than optimal for very simple chain and lattice networks with very regular traffic patterns. We validate some simulation results with experiments.We also show that the traffic pattern determines whether an ad hoc network's per node capacity will scale to large networks. In particular, we show that for total capacity to scale up with network size the average distance between source and destination nodes must remain small as the network grows. Non-local traffic-patterns in which this average distance grows with the network size result in a rapid decrease of per node capacity. Thus the question “Are large ad hoc networks feasible?” reduces to a question about the likely locality of communication in such networks.
1,681 citations
"Effectiveness of RTS/CTS handshake ..." refers background in this paper
...Thus, the hidden terminal problem may happen frequently [1]....
[...]
••
01 Jul 1998TL;DR: The paper describes the GloMoSim library, addresses a number of issues relevant to its parallelization, and presents a set of experimental results on the IBM 9076 SP, a distributed memory multicomputer.
Abstract: A number of library based parallel and sequential network simulators have been designed. The paper describes a library, called GloMoSim (Global Mobile system Simulator), for parallel simulation of wireless networks. GloMoSim has been designed to be extensible and composable: the communication protocol stack for wireless networks is divided into a set of layers, each with its own API. Models of protocols at one layer interact with those at a lower (or higher) layer only via these APIs. The modular implementation enables consistent comparison of multiple protocols at a given layer. The parallel implementation of GloMoSim can be executed using a variety of conservative synchronization protocols, which include the null message and conditional event algorithms. The paper describes the GloMoSim library, addresses a number of issues relevant to its parallelization, and presents a set of experimental results on the IBM 9076 SP, a distributed memory multicomputer. These experiments use models constructed from the library modules.
1,462 citations