Priority-based dynamic packet reservation for TDMA wireless networks

We investigate the problem of dynamic bandwidth reservation over the uplink of TDMA-based wireless networks providing prioritized services. The proposed multiple access protocol has the following salient features. First, it supports multiple levels of priorities. Second, it optimizes a unique cost function that consists of a weighted sum of allocation "deviation" functions, on a frame-by-frame basis. This, in turn, reduces the computational complexity significantly and hence makes it more suitable to real-time operation. Furthermore, the proposed cost function is amenable to analytical optimization techniques. Third, it supports a wide variety of traffic classes, namely multimedia, short message bursts and call hand-off requests. The simulation results show that a performance improvement is achieved by this protocol compared to a heuristic policy based on weighted fair queuing.