HLBP: A Hybrid Leader Based Protocol for MAC Layer Multicast Error Control in Wireless LANs

In IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs current standard MAC layer protocols do not provide any error correction scheme for broadcast/multicast. In our previous work, we enhanced a Leader Based Protocol (LBP) and proposed a Beacon-driven Leader Based Protocol (BLBP) for the MAC layer multicast error control. In this paper, we combine BLBP and packet level Forward Error Correction (FEC) and propose a Hybrid Leader Based Protocol (HLBP). HLBP transmits the original data packets using raw broadcast and retransmits parity packets using an improved BLBP which is based on block feedback. To guarantee the required Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) under strict delay constraints, we analyze HLBP, develop formulas to optimize its performance and evaluate its performance via simulation experiments. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that HLBP is much more efficient than LBP and BLBP especially for large multicast groups and is even more efficient than the best application layer multicast error correction scheme.