TSINGHUA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

I S S N 1 0 0 7 - 0 2 1 4 0 3 / 1 8 p p 7 5 4 - 7 5 8
Volume 13, Number 6, December 2008

QoS Support Polling Scheme for Multimedia Traffic in Wireless LAN

MAC Protocol*

YANG Zhijun (ཷᄝࢋ)1,2, ZHAO Dongfeng (ვՊ‫)פ‬1,**

1. Department of Communication Engineering, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China;

2. Information Center of Educational and Scientific Institute, Educational Department of Yunnan Province,
Kunming 650223, China

Abstract: Quality of service (QoS) support is a key attribute for multimedia traffic including video, voice, and
data in wireless local area networks (LANs) but is limited in 802.11-based wireless LANs. A polling-based
scheme called the point coordination function (PCF) was developed for 802.11 LANs to support the trans-
mission of multimedia traffic. However, the PCF is not able to meet the desired practical traffic differentiation
requirements for real-time data. This paper describes a QoS support polling scheme based on the IEEE
802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocol. The scheme uses a two-level polling mechanism with the
QoS classes differentiated by two different access policies. Stations with higher priority traffic such as key or
real-time data form the first level and can access the common channel through an exhaustive access policy.
Other stations with lower priority traffic form the second level and can access the channel through a gated
access policy. A system model based on imbedded Markov chain theory and a generation function were
setup to explicitly analyze the mean information packet waiting time of the two-level polling scheme. Theo-
retical and simulation results show that the new scheme efficiently differentiates services to guarantee better
QoS and system stability.

Key words: polling system; exhaustive access policy; gated access policy; information packet waiting time;
quality of service (QoS)

hot area of research for some time with improvements

Introduction
Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are becoming
more popular due to their low cost and high capacity.
Wireless networks are expected to support multimedia
services with guaranteed quality of service (QoS) for
diverse traffic types (video, voice, and data)[1] even
though the QoS in wireless networks is a challenging
problem due to the limited bandwidth. QoS support in
wireless networks as well as in wireline has been a key
Received: 2007-06-18; revised: 2007-12-03
* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Nos. F0424104 and 60362001) and the Natural Science Foundation
of Yunnan Province of China (No. 2004F0011R)
** To whom correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: zhaodf123@263.net; Tel: 86-875-5031598
in the medium access control (MAC) protocol as the
key way to resolve the problem.
The current WLAN standard IEEE 802.11[2] has the
distributed coordination function (DCF) access mode
and the point coordination function (PCF) access mode.
The DCF is designed to support best-effort services
while the PCF supports time-bounded services. A con-
tention free period (CFP) and a contention period (CP)
alternate over time. During the CFP, the PCF is used
for accessing the medium, while the DCF is used dur-
ing the CP. In the PCF mode, stations are coordinated
by a station called the point coordinator (PC) which is
typically co-located with the access point (AP)[3] with
a polling scheme used to guarantee the CFP in which
the PC polls each station in order asking for a pending
 YANG Zhijun (ཷᄝࢋ) et alġQoS Support Polling Scheme for Multimedia Traffic in Wireless …
frame. The polling scheme based on PCF is suitable
for time-bounded real-time traffic and used to support
the QoS in IEEE 802.11, but the polling scheme still
considers the flows from all stations to have the same
priority so it cannot satisfy practical service differen-
tiation requirements to fulfill the needs of various traf-
fic streams.
While the 802.11 standard has limited QoS support,
the IEEE 802.11 Task Group E has defined enhance-
ments to the 802.11 MAC protocol in the 802.11e
standard[4]. 802.11e introduces the enhanced DCF (en-
hanced distributed channel access, EDCA) and the hy-
brid coordination function (HCF). EDCA is a com-
pletely distributed scheme which allows each station to
sort its traffic into eight different access categories. In
this way, EDCA provides service differentiation, tak-
ing into consideration the various needs of flows
within a specific station. The HCF allows a hybrid co-
ordinator (HC) located at the AP to start polling-based
contention-free access at any time during the conten-
tion period to conform to the QoS parameterizations.
The IEEE 802.11e standard provides QoS support
through the introduction of traffic categories and traffic
priorities by adjusting the contention window (CW)
size, sensing time, transmitting duration, etc. The HCF
also uses a polling scheme[5-8] when a station has the
right to initiate transmissions after the station receives
a special poll frame, the QoS CF-Poll, from the HC.
However, IEEE 802.11e imposes a burden on the net-
work management module due to its complexity since
the HCF is a complex model with a large number of
variables used to track various measurements and
needs in the network. Hence, further work is needed to
show whether the simple 802.11 standard can be modi-
fied to address the QoS in WLANs.
This paper describes a QoS support polling scheme
for multimedia traffic as an IEEE 802.11 MAC proto-
col enhancement. Figure 1 illustrates the new scheme
with a two-level polling mechanism. The QoS classes
are differentiated by two different access policies in
the two-level polling scheme. Each time a station with
higher priority traffic such as key or real-time data ini-
tiates a first level transmission by accessing the com-
mon channel through the exhaustive access policy[9],
and the channel remains allocated to the station until
its transmission is completed. When operating under
the exhaustive access polling, upon the reception of a
755
polling message the station is permitted to transmit all
packets stored in its buffer as well as packets arriving
during the transmission. Other stations with lower pri-
ority traffic form the second level which accesses the
channel through the gated access policy[10], in which
upon receiving a polling message, a station is permit-
ted to transmit all packets stored in its buffer. The
two-level polling scheme provides a simple and reli-
able guarantee of the QoS classes. Imbedded Markov
chain theory and a generation function method were
used to model and analyze the mean information
packet waiting time for the scheme. Theoretical analy-
ses and simulations used to verify the polling scheme
show that it gives efficient QoS support for WLAN
transmissions.
Fig. 1 Two-level polling scheme in WLAN MAC protocol
2 System Model and Mean Waiting
Time
2.1 System model
Consider a WLAN consisting of N  1 stations in-
cluding one key station h with a higher priority and
N ordinary stations 1, 2,!, N with lower priorities
as shown in Fig. 1. The arrivals of the information
packets waiting for transmission follow an independent
Poisson distribution with generation function A( z ) ,
mean value O Ac(1) , double origin quadrature
V O2 Acc(1)  O  O 2 for each ordinary station, and
Ah ( z ) , Oh Ahc (1) , V O2h Ahcc(1)  Oh  Oh2 for the key
station. The stations polled by the AP represent a
two-level polling scheme with two levels of priorities.
The AP first polls the key station h which transmits
all of its packets if it has information packets in its
queue to transmit. Then the AP polls ordinary station
 756 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2008, 13(6): 754-758

i (i 1, 2,!, N ) which proceeds to transmit using the the ordinary stations and the key station.
gated access policy if it has information packets. The Imbedded Markov chain theory was then used to
timing variables for each station to transmit informa- characterize this WLAN model. Assume that the AP
tion packets are independent of each other in the prob- polls station i at time tn , switches to poll key station
ability distribution which has a generation func- h at tn* , and then polls station i + 1 at tn 1 ( tn  tn* 
tion B( z ) , mean value E Bc(1) , a double origin tn 1 ). Further assume that each station has enough
quadrature V E2 Bcc(1)  E  E 2 for ordinary stations, storage so that no information packets are lost under
and Bh ( z ) , E h Bhc (1) , V E2h Bhcc(1)  E h  E h2 for the the first in first out rule.
key station. After finishing the information transmis- Define a random variable [ j (n) as the number of
sion from ordinary station i , the AP again polls the information packets in storage at station j ( j 1,
key station h . The variable walking and polling times 2,! , N , h) at time tn. Then the status of the entire
between ordinary stations and key station are inde- queuing system can be represented as {[1 (n), [ 2 (n),!,
pendent of each other in the probability distribution [ N (n), [ h (n)} at time tn, {[1 (n*), [ 2 (n*),!, [ N (n*), [ h (n*)}
which has a generation function R( z ) , mean
at time tn* , and {[1 (n  1), [ 2 (n  1),!, [ N (n  1),
value J Rc(1) , and double origin quadrature
[ h (n  1)} at time tn 1 . The generation function for
V J2 Rcc(1)  J  J 2 . The AP continues to poll all the
the probability distribution is
ordinary stations with the polling alternating between
ª N º ª N § § N § N · · ·º
Gi 1 ( z1, z2 ,! , z N , zh ) limE «– zi[i ( n 1) zh[h ( n 1) » R «– A( z j )Ah ¨ Bh ¨ – A( z j )F ¨ – A( z j ) ¸ ¸ ¸ » <
¨ ¨ ¸
t of ¬ i 1 ¼ ¬« j 1 © © j1 ©j1 ¹ ¹ ¹¸ ¼»
ª § N § § N § N ···· § N § N · ·º
Gi « z1 , z2 ,!, B ¨ – A( z j )Ah ¨ Bh ¨ – A( z j )F ¨ – A( z j ) ¸ ¸ ¸ ¸ , zi 1 ,!, z N , Bh ¨ – A( z j )F ¨ – A( z j ) ¸ ¸ » ,
¨ ¨ ¸ ¨ ¸
«
¬
¨ j1
© © © j1 © j1 ¹ ¹ ¸¹ ¸¹ © j1 © j1 ¹ ¹ »¼
i 1, 2, !, N (1)

ª N [ ( n* ) [ ( n* ) º wGih ( z1 , z2 ,!, z N , zh )
limE «– zi i zh h »
Gih ( z1 , z2 ,!, z N , zh ) gih ( j ) lim
z1 ,!, z N , zh o1 wz j
,
t of ¬ i 1 ¼
ª N º i 1, 2,!, N ; j 1, 2,!, N , h (4)
R «– A( z j )Ah ( zh ) » <
¬j1 ¼ and let
2
w Gi ( z1 , z2 ,!, z N , zh )
ª § N · º gi ( j , k ) lim ,
Gi « z1 , z2 ,!, B ¨ – A( z j )Ah ( zh ) ¸ , zi 1 ,!, z N , zh » , z1 ,!, z N , zh o1 wz j wzk
¬« © j1 ¹ ¼» i 1, 2,! , N ; j 1, 2,!, N , h ; k 1, 2,! , N , h (5)
i 1, 2, !, N (2) 2
w Gih ( z1 , z2 ,!, z N , zh )
F ( zh ) Ah ( Bh ( zh F ( zh ))) represents the probability gih ( j , k ) lim ,
z1 ,!, z N , zh o1 wz j wzk
generation function for the key station to finish trans-
i 1, 2,!, N ; j 1, 2,!, N , h ; k 1, 2,!, N , h (6)
mission of packets arriving during any slot time under
the exhaustive access policy. Substituting Eqs. (1) and (2) into Eqs. (3) and (4)
N

2.2 Mean waiting time

and simplifying using ¦U
i 1
i  Uh N U  U h  1 where

Ui Oi Ei (i 1, 2," , N ) and U h Oh E h gives

Let the mean number of information packets at station
j at tn be defined as gi ( j ) when station i is polled N OJ
g i (i ) (7)
* 1 U h  N U
and at t n as gih ( j ) when station h is polled.
OhJ (1  U h )
wGi ( z1 , z2 ,!, z N , zh ) g ih(h) (8)
gi ( j ) lim , 1  Uh  N U
z1 ,!, z N , zh o1 wz j
Substituting Eqs. (1) and (2) into Eqs. (5) and (6)
i 1, 2,! , N ; j 1, 2,!, N , h (3)
with the same condition gives
 YANG Zhijun (ཷᄝࢋ) et alġQoS Support Polling Scheme for Multimedia Traffic in Wireless … 757

NJ O 2 ­ Rcc(1)
g i (i, i ) ® 
(1  U h  U )(1  U h  N U ) ¯ J
(1  U h) Acc(1) 1
 ( N  1)J  <
O 2
1 U h  N U
ª U U h Acc(1) U Acc(1)
« N ( N  1) UJ   N O Bcc(1)  
¬ O 2
O2
( N  1) U U h  ( N  1) U  E 2h Ahcc(1) 
º °½
O hBhcc(1)  2 U h  2 U h » ¾
2
(9)
¼ ¿°
g ih(h, h) O hRcc(1)  J Ahcc(1) 
2

[2O EJ  O 2hBcc(1)  E Acc(1)]g i (i )  O 2h E 2 g i (i, i )

2
h (10)
The information packet waiting time, w j , is then the
time from when a packet enters into the queue at sta-
tion j ( j 1,2,!, N , h) to when it is transmitted.
According to queue theory, the mean information
packet waiting times, E ( wi ) and E ( wh ) , can be
given.
For an ordinary station,
(1  U ) g i (i, i)
E ( wi ) , i 1, 2,!, N
2O g i (i )
For the key station,
E ( wh )
g ih (h, h) O Bcc(1)  (1  2 U h ) Ahcc(1)
 h h
2O h g ih (h) 2(1  U h ) 2O 2h (1  U h )
3 Theoretical and Simulated Waiting
Times
The theoretical mean information packet waiting time
was calculated for the key station and the ordinary sta-
tions by normalizing Eqs. (11) and (12). The waiting
time was also calculated in simulations using a WLAN
bandwidth of 11 Mbps, information packet length of
1000 bits, walking and polling times of 10 Ps and time
slots of 10 Ps. The theoretical and simulated results for
the system waiting time are shown in Figs. 2 and 3.
The dashed line in Fig. 2 represents the theoretical
waiting times for the ordinary stations while the solid
line represents the waiting times for the key station.
The symbols represent the simulation results for vari-
ous numbers of stations. In Fig. 3 the dash-dot line
represents the theoretical times using the traditional
802.11 polling scheme based on only gated access pol-
icy[10], with N  1 stations while the asterisks repre-
sent the simulated times for the same scheme.
Fig. 2 Mean waiting time (O 0.0055, Oh 0.0055)
(11)
(12)
Fig. 3 Comparison of mean waiting times for the tra-
ditional 802.11 polling scheme using only gated access
policy[10] with the current two-level polling scheme
Figures 2 and 3 show that the theoretical results are
identical with the simulations. The two figures also
show that the waiting times for the key station are well
differentiated from ordinary stations with shorter wait-
ing times with the waiting times for the key station not
increasing much as the number of ordinary stations is
increased. Service differentiation in a WLAN refers to
the ability of the QoS scheme to differentiate between
different application requirements. The comparison
between the system based on the traditional 802.11
polling scheme and the current two-level polling sys-
tem in Fig. 3 demonstrates that the key station is well
distinguished in the current scheme with the lowest
waiting time and that even the ordinary stations per-
forms a little better than the stations in a system based
on the traditional 802.11 polling scheme for the same
number of stations. Thus, this mechanism efficiently
guarantees the QoS to optimize the system.
 758
4 Conclusions
This paper describes a QoS support polling scheme for
multimedia traffic including video, voice, and data in
an 802.11-based WLAN. A two-level polling mecha-
nism is provided with the QoS classes differentiated by
gated and exhaustive access policies. The exhaustive
access policy provides the key station with a higher
priority while the gated access policy provides the
other stations with lower priorities. A network model
was then used to analyze the mean information packet
waiting time. Simulations agree well with the theoreti-
cal results. The theoretical and simulated results show
that the two-level polling scheme provides a simple
and reliable way to improve QoS support for 802.11
networks.
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