A framework for massive access and radio resource management in urban WLANs

The challenge in future unlicensed wireless networks will be the coordination of spectrum access among wireless LAN (WLAN) nodes in high dense areas. New WLAN standards, such as IEEE 802.11ah, will provide optimized outdoor WLAN coverage with a range of 1 km, thus exceeding the number of associated WLAN nodes. Hence, massive access schemes are required in order to coordinate the wireless access among WLAN nodes and to mitigate mutual interference. In addition, various wireless networks will co-exist, such as WLANs and sensor networks, competing for channel access. Hence, a framework in order to coordinate WLANs and sensor networks in dense areas is essential. This paper is intended to outline the challenges of wireless access in urban WLANs and proposes a framework which considers the challenges of dense wireless access and discusses potential solutions. The contributions are twofold. A clustering framework is proposed to deal with the massive access of wireless nodes, in particular of IEEE 802.11ah WLAN nodes. Further, a radio resource monitoring and management (RRMM) is proposed to manage the co-existence among wireless networks. A novel system architecture is proposed and discussed in order to monitor and manage the WLAN access in highly dense urban areas.