Device Grouping for Fast and Efficient Channel Access in IEEE 802.11ah Based IoT Networks

Abstract

The recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) have led to numerous emerging applications ranging from eHealthcare to industrial control, which often demand stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements such as low-latency and high system reliability. However, the ever-increasing number of connected devices in ultra-dense IoT networks and the dynamic traffic patterns increase the channel access delay and packet collision rate. In this regard, this paper proposes a sectorbased device grouping scheme for fast and efficient channel access in IEEE 802.11ah based IoT networks such that the total number of the connected devices within each sector is dramatically reduced. In the proposed framework, the Access Point (AP) divides its coverage area into different sectors, and then each sector is further divided into distinct groups based on the number of devices and their location information available from the cloud-center. Subsequently, individual groups within a sector are assigned to specific Random Access Window (RAW) slots, and the devices within distinct groups in different sectors access the allocated RAW slots by employing a spatial orthogonal access mechanism. The performance of the proposed sectorized device grouping scheme has been analyzed in terms of system delay and network throughput. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme can significantly enhance the network throughput while simultaneously decreasing the system delay as compared to the conventional Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and IEEE 802.11ah grouping scheme.

Resource Management for Massive Internet of Things in IEEE 802.11ah WLAN: Potentials, Current Solutions, and Open Challenges

“…Table 7 provides an in-depth overview of the various resource allocation MAC protocols suggested for relay and group sectorization. The highlighted approaches in Table 7 support relay [ 108 , 129 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 ], and group sectorization [ 141 ] is supported in IEEE 802.11ah. These approaches can increase the network coverage and capacity.…”

“…A sector-wise STA grouping system for fast channel access was proposed in [ 141 ]. First, the coverage area is divided into unique sectors by the AP.…”

Enabling Wireless Closed Loop Communication: Optimal Scheduling Over IEEE 802.11ah Networks

“…Although an IEEE 802.11ah AP can support up to 8192 connected stations, we consider a small number of simultaneously operating non-slave nodes, assuming that the AP uses some standard mechanisms to decrease the contention between them in dense or ultra-dense deployments [20], [21], [24], [41]. Reporting interval of the non-slaves is set to 1 s, which faithfully represents traffic patterns of many more stations in real deployments.…”

Scalable internet of things network design using multi-hop IEEE 802.11ah

“…Table 2 presents different parameters used in the simulation. Results are compared with Traditional access mechanism of IEEE 802.11ah and a sectorization scheme FE-MAC [10]. In FE-MAC, the AP node broadcasts beacons to the specific locations by utilizing the sectorized beams created with multiple antennas in it.…”