Credit-based slot allocation for multimedia mobile ad hoc networks

This paper studies resource management for multimedia mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). In particular, we focus on providing fair scheduling with quality-of-service (QoS) support for MANET. We consider two types of flows: guaranteed and best effort flows. The goal is to satisfy the QoS requirements of guaranteed flows and to provide global fairness for best effort flows. In this paper, a credit-based fair scheduling mechanism called credit-based slot allocation protocol (CSAP) is proposed. In CSAP, nodes are logically grouped into clusters, each with a scheduler. Each scheduler assigns time slots to nodes in its cluster based on the first tier algorithm. The node scheduled to send at the next time slot then in turn assigns the time slot to a relayed flow determined by the second-tier algorithm. Each multihop flow is treated as multiple single-hop flow segments. These segments are then correlated such that a downstream segment will not be allocated a slot unless the upstream segments have all been allocated. We evaluate the performance of CSAP by simulations. The results show that CSAP meets the QoS requirements of guaranteed flows, provides global fairness for best effort flows, and improves overall system throughput.