Frame Aggregation with Simple Block Acknowledgement Mechanism to Provide Strict Quality of Service Guarantee to Emergency Traffic in Wireless Networks

This paper proposes a frame aggregation with a simple block acknowledgement (FASBA) mechanism to provide a strict QoS guarantee to life-saving emergency traffic in wireless local area networks. This work builds on our previous work on a multi-preemptive enhanced distributed channel access protocol called MP-EDCA. The main difference between FASBA and MP-EDCA is that MP-EDCA does not provide a strict QoS guarantee to life-saving emergency traffic (e.g., ambulance calls), especially in high-load conditions. Our proposed FASBA protocol solves the problems of achieving a strict QoS guarantee to life-saving emergency traffic. The strict QoS guarantee is achieved by aggregating multiple frames with a two-bit block acknowledgement for transmissions. FASBA assures guaranteed network services by reducing MAC overheads; consequently, it offers higher throughput, lower packet delays, and accommodates a larger number of life-saving emergency nodes during emergencies. The performance of the proposed FASBA is validated by Riverbed Modeler and MATLAB 2024a-based simulation. Results obtained show that the proposed FASBA offers about 30% lower delays, 17% higher throughput, and 60% lower retransmission attempts than MP-EDCA under high-traffic loads.