WiFi-Nano: Reclaiming WiFi Efficiency through 800 ns Slots

Eugenio Magistretti Boidar Radunovi

#

Krishna Kant Chintalapudi * Ramachandran Ramjee *

Rice

University
# Microsoft

* Microsoft

Research India

Research Cambridge

Problem Overview

[Mbps]

~55 Mbps
1997 802.11 1999 802.11a/b 2003 802.11g 2009 802.11n 2012 802.11ac/ad

802.11 data-rates have increased from 1 Mbps

to 1 Gbps
Throughput performance has not seen a

commensurate increase

Contribution

WiFi-Nano increases 802.11 throughput up to 100%

Why Throughput << Data-rate?

Medium Access Preamble
20s

Data
224s SIFS

ACK
44s

54 Mbps

101.5s DIFS

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

405.5 s Medium Access Preamble

32s

Data
40s SIFS

ACK
36s

300 Mbps

101.5s DIFS 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

225.5 s Preamble Data

40s 20s SIFS

Medium Access

ACK
44s

600 Mbps

101.5s DIFS 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

221.5 s

Why Throughput << Data-rate?

54 Mbps
DIFS

Medium Access 101.5s

Preamble Overhead 20s

Data ~45% 224s

ACK
SIFS

60s

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

405.5 s Medium Access 101.5s

300 Mbps

Overhead ~82% 52s

SIFS

Preamble 32s

Data 40s

ACK

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

225.5 s Preamble Data 40s 20s

600 Mbps

Medium Access 101.5s

Overhead ~91% 60s

SIFS

ACK

802.11 overhead does not scale with data-rate

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

221.5 s

Motivation
Overhead Components
SIFS 16% Preambles 40% Communications Overhead Cannot be removed! ACK 2% Slot Duration 42%

Single Link Case

Medium Access
101.5s DIFS 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Preamble Data
40s 20s SIFS

Preamble+ACK
44s

Motivation
Overhead Components
SIFS 14% Preambles 34%

ACK 2%

Slot Duration 23%

Collisions 27%

Multiple Links Case (30)

Objective
SIFS 14% Preambles 34%

ACK 2%

Slot Duration 23% Collisions 27%

Reduce slot duration

q q

and reduce the occurrence of collisions while preserving fairness

Remove SIFS

Challenge: Slot Duration

802.11a/n slot duration of 9 s is close to the

minimum feasible
A 0 B 1 A 3 B 1
PropagaDon Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) 4 s PropagaDon

802.11 Slot
Clear Channel Assessment (CCA)

4 s

Rx/Tx Hardware Turnaround

4 s

Key assumption:

Preamble detection and transmission are serial

Speculative Preambles
Preamble detection and transmission occur in parallel

Clear Channel Assessment may take multiple slots

The slot time can be reduced to a round-trip propagation delay

Slot Time (800 ns)

Speculative Preambles
Slot Time (800 ns) 1. As soon as the backoff

expires, a node transmits its preamble 2. CCA: A node transmitting a preamble continues to attempt to detect incoming preambles 3. A node aborts its transmission if it detects a preceding preamble

Node A 1 0 Node B

Preamble

Preamble

3 2 1 0 Node C 2 1 0

Preamble

Medium Access time decreases from

101.5 s to 7.6 s

WiFi-Nano Design
Objectives Techniques
Speculative Preambles

Slot Time Duration

Collisions

Probabilistic Collision

Resolution
Fairness Counter Roll-back Minimum Slot Size SIFS Speculative ACKs

Implementation
Detect preambles and their starting time under

interference
Lattice Correlator

[PN1]

PN1 PN2 PN3

[PN2] [PN3]

+[PN2,PN3] + +

[PN1,PN2]

[PN1, PN2,PN3]

Simultaneously transmit and detect preambles

Analog Self-Interference Canceller

Rx
QH Noise Canceller

Tx

Analog Radio Front-end

Interference may require longer preambles

Results

Experiments
q

Reliability of Preamble Detection Efficiency Gain and Analysis Fairness

q q

Lyrtech

Qualnet

Preamble Detection
Can nodes reliably detect preambles despite self-interference?

Slightly longer preambles permit to maintain reliability

Efficiency
Efficiency f(data rate, #nodes)

WiFi-Nano increases the throughput up to 100%

Efficiency
Efficiency f(data rate, slot time)

WiFi-Nano .11a/n .11b

WiFi-Nano increases the throughput up to 100%

How to Achieve More? Frame Aggregation

Works only for single-link bulk downloads Practically difficult to achieve
q q q

Small packets (TPC ACKs) Short flows (HTTP) Delay sensitive applications (TPC, VoIP)

Frame Aggregation
Practically difficult to achieve

Related work reports 18 kB as average aggregation

At 18 kB, WiFi-Nano gains 25% over 802.11 at 600 Mbps

Summary
802.11 overhead can be > 90%
WiFi-Nano permits to q Reduce the slot time to 800 ns q Reduce the occurrence of collisions to nearly 0 q Remove SIFS

WiFi-Nano increases 802.11 throughput up to 100%

WiFi-Nano: Reclaiming WiFi Efficiency through 800 ns Slots

Q&A
Eugenio Magistretti Boidar Radunovi
Rice

Krishna Kant Chintalapudi *

#

Ramachandran Ramjee *
* Microsoft

University
# Microsoft

Research India

Research Cambridge