A Distributed MAC Layer Congestion Control Method to Achieve High Network Performance for EAST Experiments

Many applications would require fast data transfer in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) nowadays. A representative example is the EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) project where physics researchers need to transport massive experiment data using the TCP (Transmission Control Pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on nuclear science 2013-10, Vol.60 (5), p.3758-3763
Main Authors: Kai Shi, Yang, Oliver, Yantai Shu, Sheng Lin, Jinsong Wang, Jiarong Luo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Delays
Distributed algorithm
IEEE 80211 WLAN
MAC layer congestion control
Media Access Protocol
Packet loss
TCP performance
Throughput
Wireless communication
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Summary:Many applications would require fast data transfer in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) nowadays. A representative example is the EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) project where physics researchers need to transport massive experiment data using the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). However, the high contention level and the high error rate in wireless networks have a great impact on the TCP performance. To alleviate this problem, this paper proposes a MAC layer congestion control method to deal with wireless packet loss due to errors (as opposed to congestion). Our mechanism is implemented at the end wireless nodes based on the IEEE 802.11 DCF mechanism but without any modification to the TCP layer. We first propose the concept of the MAC layer congestion window in which the MAC layer will send all the packets in a window when it obtains access to the wireless channel (unlike the traditional DCF mechanism that just sends only one packet). Then we allow our congestion control mechanism to adjust its MAC congestion window based on the contention degree and the packet loss rate at the MAC layer. By performing wireless congestion control at the MAC layer, our mechanism can mitigate the effect of wireless packet loss on TCP, and therefore improve the TCP performance. The simulation and experiment results show that our mechanism can achieve better performance than the traditional MAC layer mechanisms in WLANs.
ISSN:0018-9499
1558-1578
DOI:10.1109/TNS.2013.2266776