EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Low-overhead Channel-aware Rate Adaptation

Current rate selection algorithms are dominated by probebased approaches that search for the best transmission rate using trial-and-error. When operating over a dynamic channel, probe-based techniques can perform poorly since they inefficiently search for the moving target presented by the constantly changing channel. We have developed a channelaware rate adaptation algorithm CHARM that responds quickly to dynamic channel changes, and significantly outperforms probe-based algorithms in many instances. Unlike previous approaches, CHARM leverages channel reciprocity to obtain channel information without incurring RTS/CTS overhead. Our work shows that channel-aware rate selection is viable, and can significantly outperform probe-based rate adaptation over both static and dynamic channels.