Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Performance Study of a Mobile Multi-hop 802.11a/b Railway Network Using Passive Measurement

  • Published:
Mobile Networks and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we study the performance of IEEE 802.11a/b in a large-scale mobile railway networks and introduce our developed passive measurement approach. To provide a comprehensive evaluation, we built an outdoor multi-hop multi-interface railroad testbed (UNL-FRA Testbed), which consists of eight access points deployed along 3.5 mile of railroad track. We propose a novel large-scale passive measurement approach that synchronizes the system clocks of our monitoring systems, merges packet traces collected from multiple wireless channels across a multi-hop network, and enables a global performance view for the entire monitored network and across multiple layers. Based on the testing data collected from 15 field experiments carried out using BNSF locomotives and HyRail vehicles over a period of 18 months we conclude that in typical outdoor 802.11 railway environments the wireless link quality, the channel assignment scheme, and the handoff latency have much more significant impacts on the performance than the velocity. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of our conclusions on guaranteeing the quality of mobile services. We believe this is the first analysis on such a scale for 802.11-family railway networks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 10
Figure 11
Figure 12
Figure 13

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Standard, ANSI-IEEE 802.11 (1999) Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications 802.11

  2. Clark MV, Leung KK, McNair B, Kostic Z (2002) Outdoor IEEE 802.11 cellular networks: radio link performance. In: IEEE ICC, New York, 28 April–2 May 2002

  3. Leung KK, McNair B, Cimini LJ, Winters JH (2002) Outdoor IEEE 802.11 cellular networks: MAC protocol design and performance. In: IEEE ICC, New York, 28 April–2 May 2002

  4. NS-2, Network Simulator. http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns

  5. Mahasukhon P, Hempel M, Sharif H, Zhou T, Ci S, Chen H-H (2007) BER Analysis of 802.11b Networks underMobility. In: IEEE International Conference on Communications, (ICC ’07), June 2007, pp 4722–4727

  6. Atheros (2008) Atheros homepage. http://www.atheros.com

  7. Eckardt D, Steenkiste P (1996) Measurement and analysis of the error characteristics of an in-building wireless network. In: ACM SIGCOMM, Stanford, 28–30 August 1996

  8. Henderson T, Kotz D, Abyzov I (2004) The changing usage of a mature campus-wide wireless network. In: ACM MOBICOM, Philadelphia, 26 September–1 October 2004

  9. Kotz D, Essien K (2002) Analysis of a campus-wide wireless network. In: ACM MOBICOM, Atlanta, 23–28 September 2002

  10. Hernandez-Campos F, Papadopouli M (2005) A comparative measurement study of the workload of wireless access points in campus networks. In: IEEE PIMRC

  11. Tang D, Baker M (2000) Analysis of a local-area wireless network. In: ACM MOBICOM

  12. UCSB MeshNet. http://moment.cs.ucsb.edu/meshnet/

  13. Cheng Y-C, Bellardo J, Benk P, Snoeren AC, Voelker GM, Savage S (2006) Jigsaw: solving the puzzle of enterprise 802.11 analysis. In: IEEE SIGCOMM

  14. Aguayo D, Bicket J, Biswa S, Judd G, Morris R (2005) Linklevel measurements from an 802.11b mesh network. In: IEEE SIGCOMMACM SIGCOMM

  15. Steger C, Radosavljevic P, Frantz JP (2003) Performance of IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN in an emulated mobile channel. In: IEEE VTC

  16. Steger C, Radosavljevic P, Frantz P (2003) 802.11b operating in a mobile channel: performance and challenges. In: CDC

  17. Hoene C, Gunther A, Wolisz A (2003) Measuring the impactof slow user motion on packet loss and delay over IEEE 802.11b wireless links. In: IEEE Workshop on Wireless Local Networks (WLN)

  18. Ott J, Kutscher D (2004) Drive-thru internet: IEEE 802.11b for automobile users. In: IEEE INFOCOM

  19. Gass R, Scott J, Diot C (2006) Measurements of 802.11 In-Motion networking. In: The 7th IEEE workshop on mobile computing systems and applications (WMCSA)

  20. Hempel M, Sharif H, Zhou T, Mahasukhon P (2006) A wireless test bed for mobile 802.11 and beyond. In: IEEE international wireless communications & mobile computing conference (WCNM)

  21. Wireshark packet capture and analysis software. http://www.wireshark.org/

  22. Wildpackets packet capture and analysis solutions. http://www.wildpackets.com/products/

  23. Mahajan R, Rodrig M, Wetherall D, Zahorjan J (2006) Analyzing the MAC-level behavior of wireless networks in the world. In: IEEE SIGCOMM

  24. Elson J, Girod L, Estrin D (2002) Fine-grained network time synchronization using reference broadcasts. In: The fifth symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI)

  25. Claypool M, Kinicki R, Li M, Nichols J, Wu H (2004) Inferring queue sizes in access networks by active measurement. In: The 5th Passive and Active Measurement Workshop (PAM)

  26. Chen C-H, Chiu CC, Hung SC, Lin CH (2004) BER performance of wireless BPSK communication system in tunnels with and without traffic. Wirel Pers Commun

  27. Zhou T, Sharif H, Hempel M, Mahasukhon P, Wang W (2009) Quantitative study of an outdoor Multi-hop 802.11 network performance using a novel passive measurement approach. In: IEEE CCNC

  28. Ramani I, Savage S (2005) SyncScan: practical fast handoff for 802.11 infrastructure networks. In: IEEE INFOCOM

  29. Kim S, Choi S, Park S-k, Lee J, Kim S (2006) An empirical measurements-based analysis of public WLAN handoff operations. In: WILLOPAN

  30. Mishra A, Shin M, Arbaugh W (2003) An empirical analysis of the IEEE 802.11 MAC layer handoff process. ACM Comput Commun Rev 33:93–102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Velayos H, Karlsson G (2003) Techniques to reduce IEEE 802.11b MAC layer handover time. TRITA-IMIT-LCN R 03:02, ISSN 1651-7717, ISRN KTH/IMIT/LCN/R-03/02.SE

  32. IEEE 802.11k/D2.0 (2005) Part 11: wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical layer (PHY) specifications: radio resource measurement. Draft Supplement to IEEE 802.11 Standard, Draft 2.0

  33. Paulraj A, Nabar R, Gore D (2003) Introduction to space-time wireless communication. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  34. IEEE. 802.11F/D6 Recommended practice for multi-vendor access point interoperability via an inter-access point protocol across distribution systems supporting IEEE 802.11 Operation, IEEE Std

  35. Droms R (1997) Dynamic host configuration protocol. RFC 2131 ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2131.txt

  36. Perkins C et al (2002) Mobility support for IPv4. IETF RFC 3344

  37. Bychkovsky V, Hull B, Miu A, Balakrishnan H, Madden S (2006) A measurement study of vehicular internet access using In Situ WiFi networks. In: ACM MOBICOM

  38. Vacirca F, De Vendictis A, Baiocchi A (2004) Investigating interactions between ARQ mechanisms and TCP overWireless links. In: Proc. of European wireless

  39. Pabst R, Walke BH, Schultz DC et al (2004) Relay-based deployment concepts for wireless and mobile broadband radio. IEEE Commun Mag 42(9):80–89, September

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the supports from the US Federal Railroad Administration, Union Pacific, BNSF, and CSX railroads, as well as Taiwan National Science Council.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer and Electronics Engineering Department, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Ting Zhou, Hamid Sharif, Michael Hempel, Puttipong Mahasukhon & Wei Wang

  2. Department of Engineering Science, National Cheng Kung University, 1 Da-Hsueh Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan

    Hsiao-Hwa Chen

Authors
  1. Ting Zhou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hamid Sharif
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael Hempel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Puttipong Mahasukhon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Wei Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Hsiao-Hwa Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hsiao-Hwa Chen.

Additional information

This work was supported by the United States Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) under Grant 25-1105 and in collaboration with BNSF and Union Pacific Railway, and Taiwan National Science Council under Grant NSC97-2219-E-006-004.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhou, T., Sharif, H., Hempel, M. et al. Performance Study of a Mobile Multi-hop 802.11a/b Railway Network Using Passive Measurement. Mobile Netw Appl 14, 782–797 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-008-0127-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-008-0127-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation