Performance analysis of non-PC/SC based mini-WiMAX connection manager

• Published in: Cluster computing 2014-09, Vol.17 (3), p.775-789
• Main Authors: Kim, Seokhoon, Kim, Gui-Jung, Chung, Kyung-Yong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer architecture; Computer Communication Networks; Computer Science; Design; Embedded systems; Hardware; Integrated circuits; Linux; Modems; Operating Systems; Performance assessment; Performance degradation; Personal computers; Personal identification numbers; Processor Architectures; Smart cards; Software; Surveillance systems; Wireless communications
• ISSN: 1386-7857; 1573-7543
• DOI: 10.1007/s10586-013-0317-0

In order to provide WiMAX network services to specific purposed devices such as credit card systems and surveillance systems, we have proposed a new non-PC/SC based mini WiMAX Connection Manager (non-PC/SC m-WCM) that can be applied to small hardware system or architecture with Micro Controller Unit (MCU). The existing legacy WiMAX Connection Managers (WCMs) generally run on the operating systems such as Windows and Linux. This makes it hard to design and implement lightweight WCMs for the specific purposed devices that have very limited hardware capabilities. In order to solve the problem, we propose a new non-PC/SC m-WCM architecture which has almost same functionalities of the legacy WCM and implement non-PC/SC m-WCM without the performance degradations. The proposed non-PC/SC m-WCM mainly consists of three units; WiMAX module Control Unit (WCU), Data Surveillance Unit (DSU), and External device Program Unit (EPU). Besides these, it also has TCP/IP protocol stack and RTOS kernel, and can transmit date between external end user’s device and remote server system over the WiMAX networks. For the delay and throughput performance comparisons with the legacy WCMs, we have implemented the non-PC/SC m-WCM and tested it under a commercial mobile WiMAX network environment. From the experimental results, the non-PC/SC m-WCM is verified to show almost equal stability and delay performances with the legacy WCM and xDSL, but especially better than WCDMA. In the throughput tests, it has been shown that each of the modems shows almost similar throughput performance. Although the proposed WCM is designed with the very limited hardware specifications, it shows no performance degradations compared to the legacy WCMs. As a result, it has a strong possibility to be able to apply the non-PC/SC m-WCM to various types of specific purposed embedded systems, and to provide them with the same levels of WiMAX network services as those provided by the legacy WCMs.