QoS-aware resource allocation for slowly time-varying channels

In this paper the problem of optimizing transmission efficiency at the medium access control (MAC) level when considering applications requiring quality of service (QoS) constraints is addressed. The analysis focuses on the design of error protection mechanisms, and an analytical approach for selecting and dimensioning error protection for both real-time and non-real-time services is proposed. This approach is formalized as an optimization problem, and is based on the assumption of a slowly time-varying channel, as typical in wireless local area networks (WLANs). The result of the analysis is an iterative algorithm, which is capable of minimizing required capacity according on both the state of the channel and the requested QoS.