Frame Partitioning in WiMax Mesh Mode

Abstract

WiMax or the IEEE 802.16 standard is one of the most promising broadband wireless technologies nowadays. It is characterized by its high data rates, large coverage area, flexible design and QoS support. The standard defines two modes of operation: Point-to- Multi-Point (PMP) and the Mesh Mode. In the first mode, all nodes are connected directly to the base station and communication is not allowed amongst nodes. In the mesh mode, nodes are placed in an ad hoc manner communicating to neighbors and relaying the traffic of other nodes. The goal of this thesis is to design a partitioning scheme for the frame structure of the Mesh mode. Increasing the frame utilization would result in better support for QoS applications and optimized resource allocation, and thus revenue increase from the service provider’s perspective. The mesh frame is divided into control and data, which are further divided into centralized and distributed portions. We propose a novel and efficient scheme for partitioning the data subframe between the two schedulers. We use a Markovian model that studies the system behavior in the long run, and provides predictions based on analysis of previous window of frames. We further enhance the decision by tuning the partitioning through statistical analysis of smaller windows to accommodate demand changes. Our simulations show that the proposed scheme achieves high utilization under different network and traffic conditions and decreases the packet overflow.