ARROW: An Efficient Traffic Scheduling Algorithm for IEEE 802.11e HCCA

In this paper we present a novel traffic scheduling algorithm for IEEE 802.11e, referred to as ARROW (adaptive resource reservation over WLANs), which aims at providing improved performance for the support of multimedia traffic. The novel characteristic of this algorithm, compared to previous proposals, is that it performs channel allocations based on the actual traffic buffered in the various mobile stations, i.e., on the exact transmission requirements. This feature renders ARROW ideal for variable bit rate traffic. However, an enhancement is also presented that improves ARROW performance under constant bit rate traffic. The ARROW algorithm and its enhancement are discussed and evaluated against two other schedulers found in the open technical literature, namely the simple scheduler and SETT-EDD. Results from a detailed simulation model verify that ARROW provides much better channel utilization and considerably improved performance, in terms of mean delay and packet loss