Adaptive Beamwidth Selection for Contention Based Access Periods in Millimeter Wave WLANs

TL;DR

This paper introduces an adaptive algorithm for selecting antenna beamwidths in 60GHz WLANs, enhancing channel utilization and reducing transmission time by considering spatial node distribution.

Contribution

It presents a novel adaptive beamwidth selection algorithm that optimizes quasi omni antenna patterns based on node distribution to improve network efficiency.

Findings

Channel utilization improved by 20-30%

Packet transmission time reduced by 40-50%

Algorithm minimizes collisions and transmission delays

Abstract

60GHz wireless local area networks (WLANs) standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11ad and IEEE 802.15.3c) employ hybrid MAC protocols consisting of contention based access using CSMA/CA as well as dedicated service periods using time division multiple access (TDMA). To provide the channel access in the contention part of the protocol, quasi omni (QO) antenna patterns are defined which span over the particular spatial directions and cover a limited area around access points. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to determine the beamwidth of each QO level. The proposed algorithm takes into account the spatial distribution of nodes to allocate the beamwidth of each QO level in an adaptive fashion in order to maximizes the channel utilization and satisfy the required link budget criterion. Since the proposed algorithm minimizes the collisions, it also minimizes the average time required to transmit total packets in a QO level. Proposed algorithm improves the average channel utilization up to 20-30% and reduces the time required to transmit total packets up to 40-50% for the given network parameters.