New packet aggregation schemes for multimedia applications in WLAN

In IEEE 802.11 standard MAC layer and Physical layer overheads are necessary for the proper synchronization of transmitter and receiver besides sharing the wireless medium efficiently. To increase the network efficiency, the ratio of header size to payload size in a packet has to be reduced. The new IEEE WLAN amendment, IEEE 802.11n, allows aggregation of packets to increase the payload size. Here a node aggregates the packets of different applications to compose a larger packet before it is send to the access point (AP). However, this method fails in the case of delay sensitive multimedia applications. In this paper, we propose three methods that use packet aggregation to improve the system throughput of real time multimedia applications in a WLAN. These schemes use capture effect, power control scheme and directionality of antenna to allow concurrent packet transmissions in a WLAN. Our simulation studies show that these schemes increase the system throughput considerably.