A wireless traffic probe for radio resource management and QoS provisioning in IEEE 802.11 WLANs

The emergence of real-time services such as voice over IP (VoIP) and video streaming, imposes stringent requirements on the performance of a network if quality of service (QoS) targets are to be achieved. In the case of wireless networks, some form of radio resource management (RRM) is typically required to allocate the available resources among the contending stations in accordance with their needs and respective priorities. A critical aspect of any RRM scheme is the ability to monitor resource usage and to determine the resource requirements on a per-station basis. In this paper we describe a wireless traffic probe for IEEE 802.11 WLANs capable of obtaining this information and presenting it in a compact and intuitive format. The probe also shows how the wireless stations interact with one another in competing for the resources of the WLAN in a clear and quantifiable way. The results from the WLAN traffic probe obtained in a series of video streaming test scenarios are also presented that clearly demonstrate its usefulness and importance as a network tool in RRM and QoS provisioning schemes.