Dynamic Optimal Fragmentation with Rate Adaptation for Goodput Enhancement in WLANs

—To meet the demand for broadband wireless communication, wireless systems should work well in typical wireless environments, characterized by the path loss of the signals, multipath fading, interference to adjacent channels, and random errors. IEEE 802.11 WLANs use the unlicensed ISM band, which is vulnerable to noise generated by TVs, microwaves, and cordless phones. In this paper, we propose a dynamic optimal fragmentation with rate adaptation to enhance system goodput in time varying WLAN environment. The algorithm selects the best rate for a target BER or PER, and chooses an optimal fragmentation threshold to shape arbitrary sized packets into optimal length packets. Using an adaptive SNR estimator, it estimates the SNR of the receiver without changing the protocol. Through the rigorous analysis and extensive experiments, we show that the algorithm enhances the goodput approximately 18.4% in a moderate WLAN environment. The experimentation reinforces the analytical model to be c...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ICWN
• Authors: Yusun Chang, Christopher P. Lee, Bongkyoung Kwon, John A. Copeland
• Keywords: Dynamic Optimal Fragmentation, ICWN 2007, Optimal Fragmentation, Wireless Networks, WLAN Environment