Relay-based IEEE 802.11ah network: A Smart City solution

IEEE 802.11ah is proven to be a suitable communication standard for Smart City projects. However, due to the absence of Restricted Access Window (RAW) size adjustment and proper relay node solution, it fails to optimally utilize the resources in heterogeneous networks. In this paper, we propose a method to estimate the RAW size based on traffic loads and provide Relay node support for stations to use different Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCSs). The Relay nodes dynamically allocate bandwidth to stations using different MCSs in different relay groups. The proposed scheme is seamlessly assimilated into 802.11ah which shows significant performance improvement in terms of throughput and delay.