System and method for monitoring performance of wireless LAN and dynamically adjusting its operating parameters
First Claim
1. A controller for a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:
- a data processing unit arranged at a transmitting station for supplying frames to be transmitted to a destination station and receiving acknowledgements that the frames are received by the destination station, anda control unit responsive to said data processing unit for monitoring the number of attempts made to transmit each frame and the number of failures to receive an acknowledgement in response to transmission of the frame, to dynamically control transmission of airtime reservation requests sent to the destination station,wherein said control unit is adapted for determining the average number of attempts made to transmit the frames to destination stations and the average number of failures to receive an acknowledgement for the WLAN, to determine deviation of operating conditions for each of the destination stations from average operating conditions for the WLAN.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A station in the WLAN monitors each transmitted frame to determine whether the frame transmission was protected by an existing outstanding airtime reservation. If a frame is transmitted without an airtime reservation and no response frame is received, the station assumes that the transmission failed due to contention, and monitors the number of contention attempts made to transmit each frame, and the number of failures to receive an acknowledgement. Based on this information, the station dynamically adjusts an RTS/CTS threshold used to determine whether or not an RTS/CTS exchange mechanism should be enabled. If a frame is transmitted during a time interval protected by an outstanding airtime reservation and no response frame is received, the station assumes that the transmission failed due to a bit error, and monitors the number of bit error rate (BER) attempts made to transmit each frame, and the number of BER failures to receive an acknowledgement. Based on this information, the station dynamically adjusts a fragmentation threshold used to determine whether or not a data frame fragmentation mechanism should be enabled.
110 Citations
14 Claims
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1. A controller for a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:
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a data processing unit arranged at a transmitting station for supplying frames to be transmitted to a destination station and receiving acknowledgements that the frames are received by the destination station, and a control unit responsive to said data processing unit for monitoring the number of attempts made to transmit each frame and the number of failures to receive an acknowledgement in response to transmission of the frame, to dynamically control transmission of airtime reservation requests sent to the destination station, wherein said control unit is adapted for determining the average number of attempts made to transmit the frames to destination stations and the average number of failures to receive an acknowledgement for the WLAN, to determine deviation of operating conditions for each of the destination stations from average operating conditions for the WLAN. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A method of dynamically adjusting operating parameters of a WLAN, comprising the steps of:
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monitoring transmission of each frame to destination stations in the WLAN, checking whether or not an airtime reservation is obtained for protecting transmission of each frame, monitoring whether an acknowledgement is received in response to each transmitted frame, for each destination address of the WLAN, maintaining a count of contention attempts indicative of the number of attempts to transmit the frame to each destination station when no airtime reservation is available, for each destination address of the WLAN, maintaining a count of contention failures indicative of the number of failures to receive the acknowledgement when no airtime reservation is available, for each destination address of the WLAN, producing an airtime reservation threshold level for transmitting an airtime reservation request before a data frame if a parameter of the data frame exceeds the airtime reservation threshold level, incrementing the count of contention attempts for a first destination address each time when a frame unprotected by the airtime reservation is transmitted to a first destination station corresponding to the first destination address, incrementing the count of contention failures for the first destination address each time when no acknowledgement is received in response to the unprotected frame, and for the first destination address, adjusting the airtime reservation threshold level in accordance with the ratio of the incremented count of contention failures to the incremented count of contention attempts. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A controller for a wireless communication station, comprising:
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first means for monitoring transmission of frames to destination stations, second means for determining whether or not an airtime reservation is obtained for protecting transmission of the frames, third means for determining whether acknowledgements are received in response to the transmitted frames, fourth means responsive to said first, second and third means for maintaining a count of protected attempts indicative of the number of attempts to transmit the frames to the destination station when the airtime reservation is available, fifth means responsive to said first, second and third means for maintaining a count of protected failures indicative of the number of failures to receive the acknowledgements when the airtime reservation is available, and first control means responsive to said fourth and fifth means for controlling fragmentation of data to be transmitted to the destination stations. - View Dependent Claims (14)
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Specification