Performance comparison of reservation MAC protocols for broadband powerline communications networks

Halid Hrasnica; Abdelfatteh Haidine; Ralf Lehnert

doi:10.1117/12.434326

24 July 2001 Performance comparison of reservation MAC protocols for broadband powerline communications networks

Halid Hrasnica, Abdelfatteh Haidine, Ralf Lehnert

Proceedings Volume 4523, Internet Performance and Control of Network Systems II; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.434326
Event: ITCom 2001: International Symposium on the Convergence of IT and Communications, 2001, Denver, CO, United States

Abstract

We study the MAC layer of powerline communications (PLC) transmission systems applied to telecommunication access networks. PLC networks have to operate with a limited signal power which makes them more sensitive to disturbances from the electrical power supply grid and from the network environment. Well-known error handling mechanisms can be applied to the PLC systems to solve the problem of transmission errors caused by the disturbances (e.g. FEC and ARQ). However, the use of this mechanisms consumes a part of the transmission capacity and therefore decreases the already limited net data rate of the PLC systems. Because of the limited bandwidth, PLC networks have to provide a very good network utilization. Also a sufficient QoS is required, which can be reached by usage of efficient methods for the network capacity sharing - MAC protocols. The impulsive noise influences very much the error-free transmission. Therefore, this investigation includes modeling of several disturbance scenarios, too. We propose the reservation MAC protocols to be applied to the PLC access networks, because they are suitable to carry hybrid traffic with variable data rates ensuring a high network utilization. The analysis of the basic reservation protocols shows that the ALOHA random protocol can not deal with frequent transmission demands but it is more robust against disturbances than the polling based access protocol. The ALOHA protocol can be improved by the piggybacking method which degrades the collision probability and accordingly, shorts access delay. The polling protocol is extended with insertion of a contention component building a hybrid access method, which makes the access delays shorter, if there is a small number of stations in the network. Generally, the problems caused by the frequent transmission requests remain in all investigated access methods. However, the ALOHA based protocols show worst behavior in this case.

Citation Download Citation

Halid Hrasnica, Abdelfatteh Haidine, and Ralf Lehnert "Performance comparison of reservation MAC protocols for broadband powerline communications networks", Proc. SPIE 4523, Internet Performance and Control of Network Systems II, (24 July 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.434326

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