TY - JOUR

T1 - Reliability comparison of transmit/receive diversity and error control coding in low-power medium access control protocols

AU - Ghamari, Mohammad

AU - Momahed Heravi, Behzad

AU - Roedig, Utz

AU - Honary, Bahram

PY - 2014/12

Y1 - 2014/12

N2 - Low-power medium access control (MAC) protocols used for communication of energy constraint wireless embedded devices do not cope well with situations where transmission channels are highly erroneous. Existing MAC protocols discard corrupted messages which lead to costly retransmissions. To improve transmission performance, it is possible to include an error correction scheme and transmit/receive diversity. It is possible to add redundant information to transmitted packets in order to recover data from corrupted packets. It is also possible to make use of transmit/receive diversity via multiple antennas to improve error resiliency of transmissions. Both schemes may be used in conjunction to further improve the performance. In this study, the authors show how an error correction scheme and transmit/receive diversity can be integrated in low-power MAC protocols. Furthermore, the authors investigate the achievable performance gains of both methods. This is important as both methods have associated costs (processing requirements; additional antennas and power) and for a given communication situation it must be decided which methods should be employed. The€™ results show that, in many practical situations, error control coding outperforms transmission diversity; however, if very high reliability is required, it is useful to employ both schemes together.

AB - Low-power medium access control (MAC) protocols used for communication of energy constraint wireless embedded devices do not cope well with situations where transmission channels are highly erroneous. Existing MAC protocols discard corrupted messages which lead to costly retransmissions. To improve transmission performance, it is possible to include an error correction scheme and transmit/receive diversity. It is possible to add redundant information to transmitted packets in order to recover data from corrupted packets. It is also possible to make use of transmit/receive diversity via multiple antennas to improve error resiliency of transmissions. Both schemes may be used in conjunction to further improve the performance. In this study, the authors show how an error correction scheme and transmit/receive diversity can be integrated in low-power MAC protocols. Furthermore, the authors investigate the achievable performance gains of both methods. This is important as both methods have associated costs (processing requirements; additional antennas and power) and for a given communication situation it must be decided which methods should be employed. The€™ results show that, in many practical situations, error control coding outperforms transmission diversity; however, if very high reliability is required, it is useful to employ both schemes together.

U2 - 10.1049/iet-net.2013.0036

DO - 10.1049/iet-net.2013.0036

M3 - Journal article

VL - 3

SP - 284

EP - 292

JO - IET Networks

JF - IET Networks

SN - 2047-4954

IS - 4

ER -