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Increasing throughput in dense 802.11 networks by automatic rate adaptation improvement

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Abstract

Rate control algorithms for commercial 802.11 devices strongly rely on packet losses for their adaptation. As a result, they give poor performance in dense networks because they are not able to distinguish packet losses related to channel error from packet losses due to collision. In this paper, we evaluate automatic rate adaptation algorithms in IEEE 802.11 dense networks. A certain number of works in the literature address this problem, but they demand modifications of the IEEE standard, or depend on some special feature not available in off-the-shelf devices. In this context, we propose a new automatic rate control algorithm which is simple, easy to implement, standards-compliant, and well-suited for crowded 802.11 networks. Our approach consists of measuring the contention level, inferring the collision probability, and choosing transmission rates which maximize throughput. Results from simulation and real experiments show throughput improvement of up to 100% from our mechanism.

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Notes

  1. Unpublished algorithms are trade secrets.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by CAPES, CNPq, FAPERJ, FINEP and RNP. We thank WINLAB/Rutgers University for granting access to the ORBIT testbed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Informática (INF), Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, GO, Brazil

    Kleber V. Cardoso

  2. Grupo de Teleinformática e Automação (GTA), COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    José F. de Rezende

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  1. Kleber V. Cardoso
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  2. José F. de Rezende
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Correspondence to Kleber V. Cardoso.

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Cardoso, K.V., de Rezende, J.F. Increasing throughput in dense 802.11 networks by automatic rate adaptation improvement. Wireless Netw 18, 95–112 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-011-0389-9

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