S-ARQ: A new truncated ARQ for IP-based wireless network

Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) is a very effective technique against transmission error at the medium access control (MAC) layer. An erroneous MAC protocol data unit can be typically retransmitted within a given limit. In order to improve the IP-level performance, which directly affects the user-perceived quality-of-service (QoS), we propose a new truncated ARQ strategy, called MAC service data unit-based ARQ (S-ARQ), where the finite number of opportunities for retransmissions are shared by multiple fragments out of an IP datagram. We describe how S-ARQ can be implemented in a practical system, and then propose another variant of S-ARQ employing a functionality called early detection of failure. Basically, we evaluate the performance of S-ARQ in two different manners. First, assuming i.i.d. error process, we analyze both the probability of the delivery failure and the average delay of IP datagram. Then, we assess the performance of S-ARQ via simulation over a 2-state Markov channel.