Coexistence of 802.11ah and 802.15.4g networks

IEEE 802.11ah and IEEE 802.15.4g are two wireless technologies designed for outdoor IoT applications. Both technologies have communication range up to 1000 meters. Therefore, 802.11ah network and 802.15.4g network are likely to coexist. Our simulation results show that using standard defined coexistence mechanisms, 802.11ah network can severely interfere with 802.15.4g network and lead to significant packet loss in 802.15.4g network. As a result, additional coexistence control mechanisms are needed. Due to asymmetrical features such as modulation scheme and frame structure, 802.11ah devices and 802.15.4g devices cannot perform automatic cooperation. Thus, self-coexistence control techniques are preferred. This paper proposes learning based self-coexistence control techniques for 802.11ah devices to mitigate the interference impact of 802.11ah network on 802.15.4g network. We first present a α-Fairness based energy detection clear channel assessment (ED-CCA) method that enables 802.11ah devices to detect more ongoing 802.15.4g packet transmissions. We then introduce a Q-Learning based backoff mechanism for 802.11ah devices to avoid interfering with 802.15.4g packet transmission process. The proposed coexistence techniques can achieve fair spectrum sharing between 802.11ah network and 802.15.4g network.