Enabling Reliable Latency in Wi-Fi 8 Through Multi-AP Joint Scheduling

The rapid evolution of wireless communication systems, driven by increasing demands for high throughput, low latency, and reliable connectivity, presents significant challenges for traditional Wi-Fi networks. To address these limitations, the forthcoming IEEE 802.11bn amendment will likely introduce Multi-Access Point Coordination (MAPC) as a pivotal feature to enhance performance in dense network deployments. This paper proposes a comprehensive MAPC framework leveraging Coordinated Spatial Reuse (C-SR) to enable multi-AP scheduling and optimize resource allocation. First, we present a C-SR mechanism for grouping compatible devices and optimizing transmission power, facilitating simultaneous transmissions to boost network capacity. Then, we propose and evaluate three multi-AP schedulers targeting different goals: maximizing the number of packets delivered per transmission, always scheduling the oldest packet in the network, and a third solution aiming to combine the strengths of both. Results exhibit a superior performance of the proposed MAPC algorithms compared to Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), achieving a reduction in the 99th percentile delay in four-AP scenarios, of up to 92% and 48% for best effort and constant bitrate video traffic, respectively.