Resource allocation, call admission, and media access control protocols for wireless multimedia networks

The shadow cluster concept, a novel idea that can be used to improve the quality of service (QoS) guarantees in wireless networks, is an information system that is used to estimate future resource requirements and to perform call admission decisions in a cellular wireless network. With shadow clusters, base stations can predict the amount of resources they need to reserve to satisfy user-specific QoS requirements, such as call dropping probabilities. Shadow clusters can also be used to determine if a new call should be admitted to a wireless network based on the call's requirements and local traffic conditions. Analytical models are developed to define shadow clusters, determine the probabilities that a mobile terminal will be active in a cell at future times, and predict resource demands on a probabilistic basis. In addition, call admission algorithms that are based on the information provided by shadow clusters are introduced.;WISPER, (a WIrelesS Multimedia MAC Protocol with Bit Error Rate Scheduling) is a novel MAC protocol for Multi-code CDMA (MC-CDMA) that tailors the transmission of multimedia packets according to their BER requirements. In WISPER, time is divided in slots. Packets with equal or similar BER requirements are scheduled for transmission in the same slots. The performance of this protocol is analyzed through extensive simulation.