Performance of DS-CDMA

Protocols in Wireless LANS

M.Parikh, P.Sharma, R.Garg, K. Chandra, C. Thompson

Center for Advanced Computation and Telecommunications
University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854
http://morse.uml.edu
 OUTLINE
• Description of IEEE802.11b/DSSS
• Measurements of TCP Packet Transmission
using 802.11b Products
• Computational Model for Multipath
Estimation
• Statistical Analysis of Location Dependent
effects on TCP Performance
• Conclusions
 IEEE 802.11b
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
• IEEE 802.11b specifies MAC and PHY layer specifications for DSSS

• PHY layer – FH, DS, IR

Synchronization SFD Signal Service Length CRC Payload

(128 bits) (16) (8) (8) (16) (16) (variable)

PLCP Preamble PLCP header

IEEE 802.11 PHY frame using DSSS

• PHY
PLCP PMD
-provides carrier sense and CCA - BPSK/QPSK modulation
- Wireless encoding
 Transmission Specifics
CSMA/CA
• DCF : Distributed Control Function : Contention based channel
access

Immediate access if medium is DIFS Contention Window

free >= DIFS
DIFS PIFS
Busy Medium SIFS Backoff window Next Frame
Slot time
Defer Access
Select slot and decrement backoff

• Interval durations:
DIFS= 50 µs
SIFS= 10 µs
Slot Time= 20 µs
 Transmisson Specifics
• Packets retransmitted from PHY layer if receiver
ACK not received within SIFS duration : Assumes
collision
• Packets retransmitted from higher layers (TCP)
when
– channel access fails
– MAC/PHY layer buffers overflow
• Protocol parameters fixed
• Our Objective: Examine performance in spatially
varying multipath channels
TCP Performance Measurements
• Generate TCP flows between server on wired
network & mobile client
– Server  Access Point (AP) -> Mobile Terminal (MT)
– AP : Apple AirportTM
– MT: Apple Ibook with AirportTM card
WIN/XP & Linux m/cs with Lucent Orinoco Gold Card
• Capture TCP headers at Server, AP & MT using
tcpdump utility
• Jointly Analyze TCP logs to determine
retransmission and collision statistics
 Channel Impulse Response Computation

• Channel impulse response computed using method of images

- Walls of enclosure replaced by point sources of varying
strength and location
- Image source amplitude chosen by continuity of transverse
electric and magnetic fields across reflecting boundary
- Incorporates influence of varying dielectric constant for six
walls
- Rectangular room geometry; Empty Room;
- Model details described in paper
• Generates a sampled approximation of bandpass impulse
response
- 2.4 GHz center frequency, 40 MHz bandwidth
• Multipath impulse responses computed for locations A, B and C
CHANNEL IMPULSE RESPONSE
 Signal & Noise Statistics
• Local and Remote Signal and Noise power distribution
averaged across 6 measurement ensembles
• - noise range fairly stationary
– -98 : -81 dBm : Local
– -102 : -93 dBm: Remote
• Distinct bi-modal noise distribution at source suggests :
multipath noise may be distinct from environmental noise
• - signal range :
-48 - 43 dBm: Local
-43 - 37 dBm: Remote
 TCP Statistics
• Average TCP throughput stationary across
all locations : 4.2 – 5 Mbps
• TCP retransmission & packet collision
statistics highly location dependent
- Retransmission detected from server log
- Collision assumed when single occurrence of
sequence number in server log, but >1 in
Mobile TCP log: Assume ACK from MT is
lost/delayed
 Position dependent
Retransmission & Collision
Statistics
LOC TCP Retransmissions µ iat (Rx) secs PHY Collisions µ iat (Col) secs
A None - None -
B 0.22 2.18 0.24 0.46
C 0.01 15 0.21 1.34

• Mean interarrival time for the mobile terminal ~ 2ms

• Retransmissions from the PHY layer for location B occur at a
faster rate than location C
• Mean interarrival time for retransmissions for loc B is
deterministic
TCP time-sequence plots
 CONCLUSIONS
• Performance degradation in 802.11b products can be
attributed to:
- Retransmissions for the PHY layer due to a lost ack
- TCP retransmissions
- Protocol overhead
- Multipath effect
• Effective throughput decreases to 50 % due to the combined
effects of the degradation attributes
• Future work: Improve the protocol performance due to the
multipath effect