A survey on 802.11 MAC industrial standards, architecture, security & supporting emergency traffic: Future directions
Introduction
In recent years there has been a developing interest in the use of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) based on IEEE 802.11 due to the fact of its low cost and simple deployment. The IEEE 802.11-based WLAN has ended up a ubiquitous networking technology deployed around the world. A primary goal of this survey paper is to develop a framework for WLAN, which help emergency traffic and provide strict Quality of Service (QoS) assurance for lifesaving emergency traffic in a dense emergency state of affairs the place an excessive quantity of nodes report the emergency [1,2]. To attain this objective, an ordinary perception of WLANs is required. This paper targets to introduce a number key concepts of WLANs that are crucial for design, model and develop such framework. WLAN is based on Link Layer (LL). LL is divided into Logical Link Control (LLC) and Medium Access Control (MAC) sub-layer categorizes with two functions, Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and Point Coordination Function (PCF) [100], [101]
Quality of Service (QoS) is perceived and interpreted by different communities in different ways. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) defined two models relevant to QoS in IP packet-based networks. QoS behaviours tell the device how to treat the traffic as it travels from the ingress interface all the way until it is sent out the egress interface of the network device. The first model, Integrated Services (IntServ), and the second model, Differentiated Services (DiffServ) [3]. The technical or network communities refer to QoS as the measure of service quality provided by the network to the users. IETF defines QoS as “a set of service requirements to be met by the network while transporting a flow” [4]. The main goal was to provide QoS while maximising network resource utilisation. The network user community refers to QoS as the quality perceived by applications/users. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defines QoS as “the ability of a network or network portion to provide the functions related to communications between users” [5]. De-facto the concept of QoS is very broad. Over IP networks, QoS is a more technical one, focusing on monitoring and improving network performance metrics such as packet delay, jitter, packet loss, and throughput see in Table 1.
These traffic characteristics must be controlled and managed on a hop-by-hop basis in order to achieve the per-hop QoS behaviours needed to provide a complete end-to-end QoS solution [3]. Traditionally, there are two main approaches to achieve QoS in packet switched networks. These strategies are IntServ and DiffServ which are temporarily described under such as utility structure the QoS perspective.
Section snippets
Applications from the QoS perspective
In current years, there is signification growth in the use of different applications over the WLANs. From the QoS perspective, these applications can be classified into three different groups [7]. Fig. 1 [31] illustrates various application from the QoS perspective. These applications from the QoS perspective are described below.
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Applications with quantitative specifications of QoS: these applications require strict QoS guarantee. These applications have a specific requirement and impose strict
IEEE 802.11 standards, architecture and medium access control
WLAN is based on Link Layer (LL). LL is divided into Logical Link Control (LLC) and Medium Access Control (MAC) sub-layer categorizes with two functions, Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and Point Coordination Function (PCF) [15], [16], [17]. The IEEE 802.11 WLAN networks help each contention-based DCF and contention-free PCF functions. DCF makes use of Carrier Sensing Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) as the get right of entry to method [18], [19], [20], [21].
The MAC and PHY
IEEE 802.11e for quality of service
The IEEE 802.11e [29] working group has developed a new standard called IEEE 802.11e to support time-sensitive applications such as Voice over IP (VoIP) and video streaming. IEEE 802.11e introduced a new coordination function called Hybrid Coordination Function (HCF) which provides the combined advantages of DCF and PCF.
HCF uses mandatory Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism for contention -based transfer and optional HCF Controlled Channel Access (HCCA) mechanism for
Transmit opportunity, frame aggregation, and block acknowledgement
The legacy 802.11 [26] uses the Stop and Wait Automatic Repeating reQuest (SW-ARQ) scheme. In this scheme, sender transmits a single packet (frame) and then waits for the acknowledgement. This involves a lot of overhead due to time spend on sensing the channel before sending the packet and immediate transmission of ACKs after each receiving packet [40]. Fig. 6 illustrates IEEE 802.11 MAC overhead and actual payload.
To eliminate the overhead and enhance the throughput performance, IEEE 802.11e
Emergency traffic and QoS guarantee
The fundamentals of IEEE 802.11 WLANs, a basic understanding of QoS and emergency services were discussed. A primary objective of this paper to develop a framework that supports emergency traffic and provides a QoS guarantee in WLANs. To achieve this objective, a clear understanding of the challenges in providing QoS guarantee and supporting emergency traffic is required. This section provides a review of related literature. The rest of the section is organized as follow: Section 3.2 highlights
Service differentiation
The IEEE 802.11e working group introduced a new MAC protocol called IEEE 802.11e [29] to support time-sensitive application and provide QoS guarantee. However, many network researchers [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54] reported that IEEE 802.11e (EDCA) does not perform well due to its high collision rate, or numbers of slots are going free (idle slots) and MAC/PHY overhead. Over the last 20 years, many MAC schemes have been proposed to improve the throughput performance or provide the service
Service guarantee
Despite providing service differentiation, the EDCA cannot support strict QoS guarantee for time-sensitive applications [67]. Many efforts have been taken to provide QoS guarantee in EDCA. Table 7 lists the key network researchers and their main contributions in providing QoS guarantee to time critical applications. Column 3 of the table shows the year when these wireless MAC protocols were developed or published. The main mechanism approaches used to design or improve the performance of MAC
Emergency traffic support in QoS MAC protocols
The 802.11e (EDCA) does not provide any mechanism to prioritise emergency traffic [26]. Recently 802.11u-2011 [30] working group introduced a new standard called 802.11 u for interworking with external networks that also support emergency traffic over infrastructure-based WLANs but may not provide emergency traffic support over ad-hoc WLANs. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), or any other infrastructure networks are highly affected by
Frame aggregation and blockack
The foundation background on TXOP, frame aggregation and block acknowledgement were provided. It was highlighted that IEEE 802.11 MAC does not perform well due to protocol overhead [26,87]. To enhance the performance of 802.11 MAC and reduce the overhead, the IEEE 802.11e MAC introduced several mechanisms and parameters called TXOP, block size and BlockAck. For the performance optimization, 802.11e enhancement left these parameters open in the standard, for example, block size or BlockAck
Wireless MAC performance issues
Previous research demonstrated that most of the proposed MAC schemes target for throughput enhancement or service differentiation by adjusting IFS and CW. In addition to service differentiation, many MAC schemes have been proposed to provide the QoS guarantee. However, none of them provides strict QoS guarantee. Furthermore, little research has been conducted in the area of emergency traffic support over WLAN.
Moreover, A lack of a suitable framework to support emergency traffic in the dense
Design challenges for distributed wireless mac protocols
Designing a distribute wireless MAC protocol is really a challenging task due to: shared medium at the Local Area Network (LAN) level, providing QoS guarantee under high traffic load; supporting emergency traffic; node mobility, probabilistic nature of wireless medium. Shared medium: At the LAN level, all the stations shared the common channel. Without proper channel access mechanism, multiple STAs may access the channel simultaneously for transmitting the packet and in the result lead to
Future research direction industrial integration and industrial standards
The IEEE 802.11 WLAN network is a wireless Ethernet, play an important function in the Industrial Integration and Industrial Standards. WLAN is based on Link Layer (LL). LL is divided into Logical Link Control (LLC) and Medium Access Control (MAC) sub-layer categorizes with two functions, Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and Point Coordination Function (PCF) [9]. IEEE 802.11 [114] standards 802.11a support 5 GHz frequency band and 54 Mbps data rate, 802.11b support 2.4 GHz frequency and
Conclusion
This survey paper for providing Quality of Sevice (QoS) guarantee and supporting emergency traffic in wireless QoS Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols was presented. The paper reveals that IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) does not have inherent emergency traffic support. Moreover, it neither provides QoS guarantee nor works well under medium to high traffic load. Therefore, many QoS MAC schemes proposed by network researchers to enhance the performance of 802.11e EDCA.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgement
The survey paper collaboration among Auckland Institute of Studies, New Zealand, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah, KK, Sabah, Malaysia, Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), Teresina - Pi, Brazil, and Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal. The authors would like to thanks Professor Dr. Yong-Jin Park (IEEE Life member) Former Director IEEE Region 10 for his expertise in Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Internet of Things (IoT) & Future Networks,
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