DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF WIRELESS REAL-TIME DATA LINK LAYER PROTOCOLS by

This dissertation investigates the design and analysis of real-time protocols at the MAC and LLC layers. In particular, the difficulty of making real-time quality of service guarantees on a random access wireless network is considered. First, an initial real-time MAC layer protocol is designed. A corresponding technique for its analysis is developed as well. The protocol incorporates two new techniques: transmission ordering based on real-time properties and packet blocking due to deadline expiration. Second, more protocols are developed and studied. Initially, the focus was on determining how to make use of real-time properties, but here, the goal is to improve on real-time performance. We look at three algorithms and compare their success rates. Additionally, we consider their performance in two very different types of protocols: blocked access and free access. Blocked access protocols are more orderly and of the two types usually offer higher throughput. However, free access protocols are easier to implement. Third, we develop the first fully distributed, preemptive MAC protocol that makes quality of service guarantees while allowing for the coexistence of hard, soft, and non real-time data. To support full distribution of the algorithm, an additional supporting protocol is developed. With it, each station takes part in the generation of channel feedback data, essential to the proper operation of the MAC protocol itself. Fourth, we develop a simple LLC layer that uses a real-time scheduler to determine which of its potentially many packets to submit to the MAC layer, where