Medium Access Control for Multimedia Wireless Systems

In wireless multimedia systems, the medium access control (MAC) protocol should play a central role in maximizing the utilization of limited wireless resources while guaranteeing the various QoS requirements for all multimedia traffic classes, especially for the stringent real-time constraint of video service. In addition, the fairness performance becomes one of the main challenges for MAC protocol design, especially for contention-based MAC protocol. This book, therefore, provides firstly a comprehensive overview of the most efficient wireless MAC protocols. Then three novel bandwidth allocation algorithms for video traffic over wireless networks are presented. The first algorithm is based on providing fair packet delay, and the second algorithm is based on providing fair queuing for video packets. The third is based on simple bit rate estimation algorithm for efficient tracking the variable bit rate of video source. Finally, four novel contention-based MAC protocols for wireless networks are presented to maximize the channel throughput and improve the fairness of random access channels while maintaining the simplicity of implementation using fuzzy controller.