Performance evaluation of priority-based multimedia transmission with the PCF in an IEEE 802.11 standard wireless LAN

This paper proposes two kinds of priority scheduling schemes, which are referred to as priority scheme I and priority scheme II, for multimedia transmission with the PCF (point coordination function) of the IEEE 802.11 standard MAC protocol. This paper focuses on a single BSA (basic service area) in an infrastructure network and adopts a hierarchical scheduling architecture. In the architecture, the AP (access point) schedules wireless terminals, and each wireless terminal schedules voice, video and data sources. In priority scheme I, wireless terminals exert priority control where voice and video transmission is given higher priority over data transmission. On the other hand, priority scheme II carries out priority control at both AP and wireless terminals. By simulation, we compare the performance of priority scheme I, priority scheme II and a non-priority scheme. Numerical results show that these priority schemes can support a larger number of multimedia wireless terminals than the non-priority scheme under the same condition.