Supporting soft real-time services in MANETs using distributed admission control and IEEE 802.11e technology

QoS support in MANETs is a hard and challenging task due to the intrinsic complexities of these networks. In this work we present a solution called DACME to support real-time services in MANETs based on distributed admission control. Using the IEEE 802.1 Ie MAC technology as our basis for traffic differentiation, we develop a technique based on probes to assess available bandwidth in an end-to-end path, as well as the end-to-end delay and jitter. Results show that our technique is quite promising due to the degree of accuracy achieved estimating the different network parameters, while maintaining acceptable levels of traffic overhead and admission delay. Also, since no demands are imposed on intermediate stations, it can be easily deployed.