Opportunistic packet scheduling over IEEE 802.11 WLAN

Abstract

This paper introduces an opportunistic packet scheduling method and medium access control (MAC) scheme for controlling the throughput in wireless local area networks (WLANs). The proposed method takes advantage of the multi-user diversity in time-varying wireless channel while the asymmetric traffic load problem between the uplink and the downlink is alleviated. The proposed method can be implemented without the modification of the deployed IEEE 802.11 nodes. The performance of the proposed method is compared with IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) by computer simulations. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.