Fair Asynchronous Random Access with Probabilistic Antenna Allocation in MIMO Multihop Networks
- Detailed Technology Description
- A method to address starvation and fairness in wireless network communications.
- *Abstract
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Advantages
- Solves starvation and fairness issues faced by current CSMA protocols such at IEEE 802.11
- Practical because the protocol is designed for asynchronous situations
Technology
This invention is the first asynchronous multiple input/multiple output media access control (MIMO MAC) protocol that counters starvation and provides fairness. The invention exploits antenna selection and uses standard network utility maximization to find the number of used antennas per link in a given interference scenario. It devises a MAC protocol that allocates antennas via a probabilistic estimation methodology that (i) incorporates multi-level carrier sensing to estimate the number of interfering streams and (ii) probabilistically allocates antennas to ensure fair and nonstarving access. Different policies can be realized with the protocol including throughput maximization subject to non-starvation and proportional fairness.
Potential Applications
Possible applications include digital television (DTV), wireless local area networks (WLANs), metropolitan area networks (MANs), and mobile communications.
The Inventors- Ahmed Khattab is an ECE graduate student at Rice University
- Edward Knightly is a Professor of ECE at Rice University
- Ashutosh Sabharwal is an Assistant Professor of ECE at Rice University
Availability
This technology is available for license from Rice University.
A utility patent (12/132,927) has been filed with the USPTO.Inquiries
Nila Bhakuni
713-348-6231
bhakuni@rice.edu
- Country/Region
- USA
