Buffer Management in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are a type of ad hoc wireless network that uses multi-hop wireless communications to provide or improve connectivity between wireless devices. The objective of this project is to maintain high network utilization while providing low queuing delays. This is a complex problem due to the time-varying capacity of the wireless channel as well as random access mechanism of 802.11 MAC protocol. While arbitrarily large buffers can maintain high network utilization, this comes at the cost of large queuing delays. We implemented a novel buffer sizing mechanism which collectively considers a set of nodes within mutual interference range called the "collision domain". We provided a buffer size which is large enough to saturate the available capacity of the bottleneck collision domain that limits the carrying capacity of the network. Our experiment results showed aeduction in the end-to-end delays by a factor of 10. This work has been granted a patent by US patent office. The technology is being developed and attracted both Cisco and Qualcomm for possible licensing arrangement.

Duration

2012-2016

Funding

[2015-2016] PI "Bufferbloat in Wireless Multi-Hop Networks - Phase Two". Funded by KAUST Technology Transfer Office $169K
[2014-2015] PI "Bufferbloat in Wireless Multi-Hop Networks - Phase One". Funded by KAUST Technology Transfer office $80K.
[2012-2016] KAUST Baseline Funding

Team Members

• Kamran Jamshaid

• Ahmad Showail

• Li Xia

• Maha Aslani

• Faisal Nawab

Collaborators

• Prof. Philip Levis, Computer Science, Stanford University, USA

Selected Publications

• A. Showail, K. Jamshaid, and B. Shihada, "Buffer Sizing in Wireless Networks: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities", IEEE Communication Magazine, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 130-137, 2016. [PDF] I.F. (4.46)

• K. Jamshaid, B. Shihada, A. Showail^*, and P. Levis "Deffating Link Buffers in a Wireless Mesh Network", Journal of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Vol. 16, pp. 266-280, 2014. [PDF] I. F. (1.957).

• M. Aslani, A. Showail, and B. Shihada, "Green Frame Aggregation Scheme for WiFi Networks", in Proc. IEEE International Conference on High Performance Switching and Routing (HPSR), pp 1-6, 2015. [PDF]

• A. Showail, K. Jamshaid, and B. Shihada, "WQM: An Aggregation-aware Queue Management Scheme for IEEE 802.11n based Networks",  in Proc. ACM Sigcomm Capacity Sharing Workshop (CSWS), pp. 15-20, 2014. [PDF]

• A. Showail, K. Jamshaid, B. Shihada, "An Empirical Evaluation of Bufferbloat in IEEE 802.11n Wireless Networks", in Proc. IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), pp. 3088-3093, 2014. [PDF]

• F. Nawab, K. Jamshaid, B. Shihada, and P-H. Ho, "Fair Packet Scheduling in Wireless Mesh Networks", Journal of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Vol. 13, Part B, pp. 414-427, 2014. [PDF] I. F. (1.957).

• B. Shihada and K. Jamshaid, "Buffer Sizing for Multi-hop Networks," U.S. Patent No. 8,638,686. 2014. [PDF]

• B. Shihada and A. Showail, "Buffer sizing for multi-hop networks", U.S. Patent No. 9,276,832. 2016. [PDF]

Talks

• WQM: Practical, Adaptive, and Lightweight Wireless Queue Management System, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, 2014. [PPT]

• Quality of Service and Resource Optimization in Wireless Multihop Networks, Electronic Devices, Materials and Systems for Sustainable Future Conference (KAUST-NSF), 2014. [PPT]

• Deflating Wireless Link Buffers", 2nd KACSTIT Conference, KSA, 2013. [PPT]

Software Packages

1. DNB v1.2, Software licensing from KAUST under U.S. Patent no. 8,638,686, 2014. Optimizes the network delay in wireless mesh networks using distributed neighborhood buffers
2. WQM v6.0, 2015. Linux buffer management implementation for wireless 802.11n systems

3. QueueUti v1.0, 2010. NS-2 software library for measuring queue utilization in 802.11 nodes