Quality of Service in Wireless Ad-hoc Networks

Abstract

As a consequence of the increased popularity of wireless local area networks (WLANs) based on IEEE 802.11, the interest for ad hoc networks has also increased. An ad-hoc network is an autonomous wireless network that can be formed without the need of any infrastructure or centralized administration. It is composed of stations that communicate with each other through single-hop or multi-hop paths in a peer-to-peer fashion. One of the challenges that must be overcome to realize the practical benefits of ad hoc networks is Quality of Service (QoS). Ad hoc networks have been proposed for a variety of applications where support for real time, multimedia services may be necessary. These proposed applications need Quality of Service guarantees in order to provide their services correctly. An important component for QoS provisioning is resource (bandwidth) estimation and admission control. This thesis presents a strategy to provide flow-based Quality of Service on the top of MAC layer differentiated mechanisms in 802.11- ad-hoc wireless networks. We approach this by first evaluating 802.11 differentiation mechanisms and then present the strategy theoretically.