Queue Simulation Study for Multi-Link Operation in IEEE802.11be Networks

Multi-Link Operation allows simultaneous data transmission and reception over multiple frequency bands and it is one of the most relevant key features of the IEEE 802.11be standard. In some cases, this parallel communication is not possible, due to the cross-link interference and device properties. So, the devices have to operate in synchronous mode using, for example, start and end alignment mechanisms. Wireless networks can take advantage of multi-link presence to improve throughput and reduce latency. Indeed, to get the most out of this feature, particular emphasis is reserved not only on how to access the channels and do contention but also on how to manage packet flows over the different links. The packets could have different priorities and proprieties and, in some cases, it’s necessary to assign them to a specific interface or modify it dynamically. Firstly, in this paper, a study of this standard and literature works is conducted. Then, the OMNet++ simulation environment is analysed, examining the architectural model. As far as we know, no work in the literature uses it for this purpose, so we investigate it to be suitable for Wi-Fi 7 networks, highlighting the capabilities of this framework with the described needs. Several simulations are conducted, considering different scenarios and features in physical and MAC layers. Two types of packets are generated at the application level, so queues for multi-interfaces, contention and frame aggregation mechanisms are evaluated.