Streaming services that use TCP have increased; however, throughput is unstable due to congestion control caused by packet loss when TCP is used. Thus, TCP control to secure a required transmission rate for streaming communication using Forward Error Correction (FEC) technology (TCP-AFEC) has been proposed. TCP-AFEC can control the appropriate transmission rate according to network conditions using a combination of TCP congestion control and FEC. However, TCP-AFEC was not developed for wireless Local Area Network (LAN) environments; thus, it requires a certain time to set the appropriate redundancy and cannot obtain the required throughput. In this paper, we demonstrate the drawbacks of TCP-AFEC in wireless LAN environments. Then, we propose a redundancy setting method that can secure the required throughput for FEC, i.e., TCP-TFEC. Finally, we show that TCP-TFEC can secure more stable throughput than TCP-AFEC.

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) based on the IEEE 802.11 standard have been increasingly used. Access Points (APs) are being established in various public places, such as railway stations and airports, as well as private residences. Moreover, the rate of public WLAN services continues to increase. Throughput prediction of an AP in a multi-rate environment, i.e., predicting the amount of receipt data (including retransmission packets at an AP), is an important issue for wireless network design. Moreover, it is important to solve AP placement and selection problems. To realize the throughput prediction, we have proposed an AP throughput prediction method that considers terminal distribution. We compared the predicted throughput of the proposed method with a method that uses linear order computation and confirmed the performance of the proposed method, not by a network simulator but by the numerical computation. However, it is necessary to consider the impact of CSMA/CA in the MAC layer, because throughput is greatly influenced by frame collision. In this paper, we derive an effective transmission rate considering CSMA/CA and frame collision. We then compare the throughput obtained using the network simulator NS2 with a prediction value calculated by the proposed method. Simulation results show that the maximum relative error of the proposed method is approximately 6% and 15% for UDP and TCP, respectively, while that is approximately 17% and 21% in existing method.

Wireless local area networks (LANs) based on the IEEE802.11 standard usually use carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) for media access control. However, in CSMA/CA, if the number of wireless terminals increases, the back-off time derived by the initial contention window (CW) tends to conflict among wireless terminals. Consequently, a data frame collision often occurs, which sometimes causes the degradation of the total throughput in the transport layer protocols. In this study, to improve the total throughput, we propose a new media access control method, SP-MAC, which is based on the synchronization phenomena of coupled oscillators. Moreover, this study shows that SP-MAC drastically decreases the data frame collision probability and improves the total throughput when compared with the original CSMA/CA method.

Geocast communication provides efficient group communication services to distribute information to terminals that exist in some geographical domain. For various services which use geocast communication, ad hoc network is useful as network structure. Ad hoc networks are a kind of self-organing network where terminals communicate directly with each other without network infrastructure. For ad hoc networks, terminal power saving is an important issue, because terminals are driven by the battery powered system. One approach for this issue is reducing the radio transmission range of each terminal, but it degrades reachability of user data for each terminal. In this paper, we propose a design method for radio transmission range using the target problem to improve both terminal power saving and reachability for geocast communication in an ad hoc network. Moreover, we evaluate the proposed method considering both routing protocols and media access control protocols, and clarify the applicability of the proposed method to communication protocols.

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) consist of mobile terminals that directly connect with one another to communicate without a network infrastructure, such as base stations and/or access points of wireless local area networks (LANs) connected to wired backbone networks. Large-scale disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes can cause serious damage to life, property as well as any network infrastructure. However, MANETs can function even after severe disasters have destroyed regular network infrastructure. We have proposed an autonomous decentralized structure formation technology based on local interaction, and have applied it to implement autonomous decentralized clustering on MANETs. This method is known to configure clusters that reflect the network condition, such as residual battery power and the degree of each node. However, the effect of clusters that reflect the network condition has not been evaluated. In this study, we configure clusters using our method, the back-diffusion method, and a bio-inspired method, which is a kind of autonomous decentralized clustering that cannot reflect the network condition. We also clarify the importance of clustering that reflects the network condition, with regard to power consumption and data transfer efficiency.

In IEEE802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), frame collisions occur drastically when the number of wireless terminals connecting to the same Access Point (AP) increases. It causes the decrease of the total throughput of all terminals. To solve this issue, the authors have proposed a new media access control (MAC) method, Synchronized Phase MAC (SP-MAC), based on the synchronization phenomena of coupled oscillators. We have addressed the network environment in which only uplink flows from the wireless terminal to an AP exist. However, it is necessary to take into consideration of the real network environment in which uplink and downlink flows are generated simultaneously. If many bidirectional data flows exist in the WLAN, the AP receives many frames from both uplink and downlink by collision avoidance of SP-MAC. As a result, the total throughput decreases by buffer overflow in the AP. In this paper, we propose a priority control method based on SP-MAC for avoiding the buffer overflow in the AP under the bidirectional environment. Also, we show that the proposed method has an effect for improving buffer overflow in the AP and total throughput by the simulation.

In recent times, wireless Local Area Networks (wireless LANs) based on the IEEE 802.11 standard have been spreading rapidly, and connecting to the Internet using wireless LANs has become more common. In addition, public wireless LAN service areas, such as train stations, hotels, and airports, are increasing and tethering technology has enabled smartphones to act as access points (APs). Consequently, there can be multiple APs in the same area. In this situation, users must select one of many APs. Various studies have proposed and evaluated many AP selection methods; however, existing methods do not consider AP mobility. In this paper, we propose an AP selection method based on cooperation among APs and user movement. Moreover, we demonstrate that the proposed method dramatically improves throughput compared to an existing method.