WIMAX

WIMAX

• WIMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access ):

– Protocol of communication network without wire, based
on the standard IEEE 802.16
– Allows communications over long distances than WiFi,
and a greater bandwidth. Cover approximately 40km.
• Field of application:
– Better price points for both home and business
customers.
– WIMAX allow competitors joint access to any subscriber
in areas without preexisting physical cable or telephone
networks
– would allow gamers access to ad hoc local networks of
other players with the same gear- without any internet
access.
 Introduction

• Goal of WIMAX:
Provide high-speed Internet access to home and
business subscribers, without wires.

• Frequency range:
10-66 GHz and sub 11 GHz

• Supports:
– Legacy voice systems
– Voice over IP
– TCP/IP
– Applications with different QoS requirements.
 Introduction

•802.16 consists of the access point, BS(Base Station) and

SSs (Subscriber Stations).

•All data traffic goes through the BS, and the BS control
the allocation of bandwidth on the radio channel.
 Introduction

• During a communication, all the information

coming from a SS go to the BS and are
retransmit to the right SS.

• Base stations (BS) can handle thousands of

subscriber stations (SS).

• Two type of link are defined:

– The downlink: From the BS to the SS.
– The uplink: From the SS to the BS.
 Introduction

Infrastructure of WIMAX

• A WIMAX tower: similar in concept to a cell-phone

tower. A single WIMAX tower can provide coverage
to a very large area (~8,000 km).

• A WIMAX receiver : The receiver and antenna could

be a small box or PCMCIA card, or could be built into
a laptop.
 Introduction

A WIMAX tower An example of WIMAX receiver

: PCMCIA card
 PLAN

1 Transmission of the data

2 ARQ

3 Scheduling
 I Transmission of the data

1 Mac and physical layers

2 Structure of a SDU
3 structure of a PDU
4 fragmentation and packing
 1 Mac and physical layers

• The physical level:

– Specify the frequencies
– diagram of modulation
– synchronizations
– speeds,
– techniques of cutting in the time (of type
TDMA: Time Division Multiple Access)
– techniques of detection and correction of
error.
 1 Mac and physical layers

The MAC level :

Located at the top of the physical level, it
manages the allowance of the slots and uses
the method Rammed-tdma.

The interface of communication with the

applications :
this layer concentrates on the management of
level IP and the encapsulation of packages IP in
the screen adapted to the section of time.
 1 Mac and physical layers

• The MAC is comprised of three sublayers.

• The Service Specific Convergence Sublayer (CS)
provides any transformation or mapping of external
network data, received through the CS service
access point (SAP), into MAC SDUs received by the
MAC Common Part Sublayer (MAC CPS) through the
MAC SAP.
1 Mac and physical layers
1 Mac and physical layers
 I Transmission of the data

1 Mac and physical layers

2 Structure of a SDU
3 structure of a PDU
4 fragmentation and packing
 2 structure of a SDU
• Higher-layer PDUs shall be encapsulated in the MAC SDU format.
For some payload protocols, each payload consists of an 8-bit payload
header suppression index (PHSI) field followed by actual payload.

• Other protocols map the higher layer PDU directly to the MAC SDU. A
value of zero in the PHSI indicates no payload header suppression has
been applied to the PDU.
 I Transmission of the data

1 Mac and physical layers

2 Structure of a SDU
3 structure of a PDU
4 fragmentation and packing
 3 Structure of a MPDU

• The size of the payload is variable, the payload can contain

either data or management message.
MSB LSB

Generic MAC header Payload (optional) CRC (optional)

6 bytes Variable 4 bytes

• The maximum length of the MAC PDU is 2048 bytes,

including header, payload, and Cyclic Redundancy Check
(CRC).
 3 Structure of a MPDU
• Two MAC header formats
formats are
are defined:
defined:
– Generic MAC Header
Header that
that begins
begins each
each MAC
PDU
MAC containing eithereither
PDU containing MAC management
MAC
messages
management or CS data. or CS data.
messages
– Bandwidth Request
Request Header
Header used
used by
by the
the SS
SS
to request additional
additional bandwidth.
bandwidth.

• The single-bit Header Type (HT) field

distinguishes this two header formats:
– HT=0 for Generic Header.
– HT=1 Bandwidth Request Header.
 3 Structure of a MPDU

• The single-bit Header Type (HT) field

distinguishes this two header formats:
– HT=0 for Generic Header.
– HT=1 Bandwidth Request Header.
 I Transmission of the data

1 Mac and physical layers

2 Structure of a SDU
3 structure of a PDU
4 fragmentation and packing
 4 Fragmentation and packing
To allow efficient use of the airlink resource, two
functions are included in the MAC layer:

• Packing:
Several small MSDUs addressed to the same CID may
be concatenated by the transmitter to form a single
MPDU. At the reception, the SDU is reassembled by the
MAC layer.

• Fragmentation:
MSDU might be fragmented by the transmitter to form
several MPDUs. At the reception the SDUs are
separated by the MAC layer.
 4 Fragmentation and packing

Reasons:

• Lack of the frame time when allocating

the air time to the given MSDU

• High BER that requires employing

integrity check for smaller data blocks
 4 Fragmentation and packing

• The number of fragments can not be more than 16.

• When created, the MAC payload (MPDU) are

assigned by:
- Fragment Serial Number (FSN) with possible
value 0 to 15.
- Fragment Control code (FC) with the following
meaning:
o 00 = non-fragmented MPDU.
o 01 = last fragment.
o 10 = first fragment.
o 11 = continuing (middle) fragment.

• The FSN is always transmitted within the same MAC

message as the fragment data.
 4 Fragmentation and packing

• The sequence number allows the SS to recreate the

original payload and to detect the loss of any intermediate
packets.
• Upon loss, the SS shall discard all MAC PDUs on the
connection until a new first fragment is detected or a non
fragmented MAC PDU is detected.
 4 Fragmentation and packing

• If packing is turned on for a connection, the MAC

may pack multiple MAC SDUs into a single MAC
PDU. Packing makes use of the connection attribute
indicating whether the connection caries fixed-
length or variable-length packets.

• The transmitting side has full discretion whether or

not to pack a group of MAC SDUs in a single MAC
PDU.
4 Fragmentation and packing

Decrease the MAC overhead

 4 Fragmentation and packing

• Packing and fragmentation can occur

in the same PDU.
 Summarize
MAC SDUs
SDU 1 SDU 2 SDU 3 SDU 4

NO fragmentation
& NO packing Packing Fragmentation

MAC PDU 1 PDU 2 PDU 3

PDUs

TC
PDUs P PDU which has started in the First PDU which starts in this Second PDU which starts in
previous TC packet TC packet this TC packet

FEC encoding

BURST Preamble FEC 1 FEC 2 FEC 3

 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 II ARQ
• Three methods are employed to makes the data
transmission reliable in a unreliable connection
( airlink):

– ARQ ( automatic repeat request)

– FEC (Forward Error Correcting)

– H-ARQ (hybrid ARQ= ARQ+FEC)

 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 II ARQ

• Three methods are employed for the ARQ

wireless transmissions:

– Stop and Wait

– Feedback ( go back-N)

– Selective repeat

• Both feedback and selective algorithm are

based on sliding window technique
 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 Stop and Wait

• to each reception of a package, the receiver

sends a particular message (ACK) to show
reception.

• the transmitter preserves a copy of the emitted

package and await the reception of the
acknowledgement.

• after a certain time (time out), the package is

retransmitted (and the transmitter waits again).
 Stop and Wait

retransmission

Transmitting 1 2 3 3
Time
Data

NAK
ACK

ACK
Received Data 1 2 3
Time
Error

Output Data 1 2 3
Time

ACK: Acknowledge
NAK: Negative ACK
 Stop and Wait

Disadvantages of this method:

• Problem of acknowledgement of delivery

transmission not very effective

• time between the emission of two packages

• Transmissions on the network in only one

direction at the same time

=> use of the sliding window technique

 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 The sliding window technique:

• One emits several packages before awaiting an

acknowledgement.

• The number of packages is defined by the size of

the window.

• In each acknowledgement, the window shifts

(slips).
 II ARQ
The sliding window technique

Without window With a sliding window

size=0 (stop and wait) size=3

Transmitter
Transmitter

Receptor
Receptor
 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 Feedback ( go back-N)

• Based on the sliding window technique

• When an MPDU is lost, the transmitter is required

to retransmit all the PDU starting from first MPDU
was lost

Disadvantage of this method:

• Very bandwidth inefficient: some frames may be

repeated several times while there are well
received.
 Feedback ( go back-N)

Go-back 3 Go-back 5

1 2 3 4 5 3 4 5 6 7 5
Time

K
K

NA
NA

1 2 3 4 5

Error Error

1 2 3 4 5
Time
 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 Selective repeat

• Based on the sliding window technique

• Only the lost MPDU is retransmitted

 Selective repeat
Retransmission Retransmission

1 2 3 4 5 3 6 7 8 9 7
Time

K
NA

NA
1 2 4 5 3 6 8 9 7
Time
Error Error

1 2 4 5 3 6 8 9 7
Time

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Time
 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 FEC

• Error Detection Process:

• Transmitter
– For a given frame, an error-detecting code (check bits)
is calculated from data bits
– Check bits are appended to data bits

• Receiver
– Separates incoming frame into data bits and check bits
– Calculates check bits from received data bits
– Compares calculated check bits against received check
bits
– Detected error occurs if mismatch
 FEC

• Transmitter
– Forward error correction (FEC) encoder maps
each k-bit block into an n-bit block codeword.
– Codeword is transmitted.

• Receiver
– Incoming signal is demodulated
– Block passed through an FEC decoder
FEC
 FEC

• No errors present
– Codeword produced by decoder matches original
codeword.

• Decoder detects and corrects bit errors.

• Decoder detects but cannot correct bit errors;

reports uncorrectable error.

• Decoder detects no bit errors, though errors are

present
 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 H-ARQ

– H-ARQ= FEC+ARQ

– FEC: turbo codes/ convolutional codes/

block codes/…

– ARQ: selective repeat (SR) / stop and wait

(SAW)/ go-back-N (GBN)
 II ARQ
A ARQ
1. Stop and Wait
2. Sliding window technique
3. Feedback ( go back-N)
4. Selective repeat

B FEC

C H-ARQ

D Methods used by WIMAX

 Methods used by WIMAX

• ARQ mechanism is an optional part of the

MAC layer in WIMAX.

• WIMAX can use ARQ ,FEC or H-ARQ.

 Methods used by WIMAX
1 ARQ :

• Uses the sliding window technique:

– Selective repeat is selected by default

– Feedback algorithm in specified case

• More details:

– ARQ parameters shall be specified and negotiated during

connection creation or change
– A connection can not have a mixture of ARQ and non-ARQ traffic
– The ARQ feedback information can be sent as a standalone MAC
management message on the appropriate basic management
connection or piggybacked on an existing connection
– ARQ feedback cannot be fragmented.
 1 ARQ :
Transmitter state
 1 ARQ :
Receiver state
 Methods used by WIMAX
2 FEC:
• 802.16 specifies the concatenation of a Reed-Solomon
(RS) outer code and a rate-compatible convolutional inner
code, on both uplink and downlink.

• The encoding is performed by first passing the data in

block format through the RS encoder and then passing it
through a zero-terminating convolutional encoder.

• Turbo convolutional codes (TC) and Turbo Block (TB)

codes are specified as optional FEC schemes in the
standard.

• Low density parity check (LDPC) codes are a new type of

FEC codes that are gaining in popularity and might be
specified as optional FEC scheme in 802.16e version
 Methods used by WIMAX
3 H-ARQ :
• H-ARQ schema is basically a stop and wait
protocol:
– Each H-ARQ packet is encoded and 4 subpackets are
generated from the encoded result

– The transmitter shall send the packet labeled ’00’ at he fist

transmission

– Then the receiver attempts to decode the original encoder

packet
• If it succeeds the receiver sends an ACK to the transmitter so
that the transmitter stops sending additional subpackets.
• Otherwise the transmitter sends a NACK and the transmitter
may send one among the fourth subpackets.
 Methods used by WIMAX
3 H-ARQ :

– These procedure go on until the SS successfully

decodes the encode packet.

– The transmitter may send one among subpackets

labeled ’00’,’01’,’10’,’11’ in any order.

– The transmitter can send more than a copy of any

sub packet and can omit any subpacket except
the subpacket labeled ’00’.
 III Downlink/Uplink Scheduling
• Radio resources have to be scheduled according to
the QoS (Quality of Service) parameters

• WIMAX Downlink scheduling:

– the flows are simply multiplexed
– the standard scheduling algorithms can be used :
• WRR (Weighted Round Robin)
• VT (Virtual Time)
• WFQ (Weighted Fair Queueing)
• WFFQ (Worst-case Fair weighted Fair Queueing)
• DRR (Deficit Round Robin)
• DDRR (Distributed Deficit Round Robin)
 III Downlink/Uplink Scheduling
Plan

• A Downlink Scheduling

• B Uplink Scheduling
 III Downlink/Uplink Scheduling
Plan

• A Downlink Scheduling

• B Uplink Scheduling
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
•
 RR
• Round-Robin algorithm equitably distributes
the load between each waiter whatever the
current number of connections or the response
times

Counter
1 1 1 Reset
VCC 1 (Source 1)
Cycle

2 2 12 31 231 231 23 ….
VCC 2 (Source 2)

WRR
3 3 3 3 3
VCC 3 (Source 3) scheduler
 RR

• This algorithm is adapted if the waiters of the

cluster have the same processing capacities

• if not, certain waiters are likely to receive

more requests than they can treat. Some
while others will use only part of their
resources.

• The WRR algorithm solves this problem.

 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
 WRR
• The WRR algorithm is based on the Round Robin algorithm but it takes
into account the processing capacity of each waiter.

• The administrators manually assign a coefficient of performance to

each waiter. ( 1, 2 and 3 in the example).

Counter
Reset
1 1 1
VCC 1 (Source 1) Cycle
2

3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 1 3 2 1
VCC 2 (Source 2) 2 2 1 ….

3 WRR
3 3 3 3 3
VCC 3 (Source 3) scheduler

Coefficients of performance
 WRR
• A sequence of scheduling is generated automatically
according to this value.
• The requests are then assigned to the various
waiters according to a sequence of alternate
repetition
Counter
Reset
1 1 1
VCC 1 (Source 1) Cycle
2

3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 1 3 2 1
VCC 2 (Source 2) 2 2 1 …….

Sequence of scheduling
3 WRR
3 3 3 3 3
VCC 3 (Source 3) scheduler
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
VT
 VT
• VT : aims to emulate the TDM (Time Division Multiplexing)

– connection 1 : reserves 50% of the link bandwidth

– connection 2, 3 : reserves 20% of the link bandwidth

Connection 1
Average inter-arrival : 2 units

Connection 2
Average inter-arrival : 5 units
Connection 3
Average inter-arrival : 5 units

First-Come-First-Served
service order

Virtual times

Virtual Clock service

order
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
 WFQ

• It is not practical to have one queue for each

conversation so the WFQ employs a hashing
algorithm which divides the traffic over a limited
number of queues to be selected by the user or fixed
by default.

• WFQ is like having several doors. When a packet

arrives it is classified by the classifier and assigned
to one of the doors. The door is the entry to a queue
that is served together with some other in a
weighted round-robin order. This way the service is
'fair' for every queue.
 WFQ

• The packet arrives, then the classifier reads its

header.

• Calculates a number between "1" and "number

of queues“ by using information contained on
the header (source address ,destination
address, ip precedence, protocol, ...)

• Then, it locates the packet in the queue

identify by this number.
WFQ

flow 1

Classifier flow 2 WFQ

Scheduler

flow n

Buffer
management
WFQ
 WFQ

Packet queues
w1

w2
R

wn WRR algorithm

• Each flow i given a weight (importance) wi

• WFQ guarantees a minimum service rate to flow i

– ri = R * wi / (w1 + w2 + ... + wn)
– Implies isolation among flows (one cannot mess up another)
 WFQ

w1

water pipes
w2

w3

water buckets

t2
t1

w1 w2 w3
 WFQ
• If flows can be served one bit at a time

• WFQ can be implemented using bit-by-bit weighted

round robin

• During each round from each flow that has

data to send, send a number of bits equal to
the flow’s weight
 WFQ

• FFQ (Fluid Fair Queue) : head-of-the line processor

sharing service discipline
– : guaranteed rate to connection i
– C : the link speed
– : the set of non-empty queue
– The service rate for a non-empty queue i

• WFQ : picks the first packet that would

complete service in the corresponding FFQ
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
 WFFQ

• WFFQ is based on WFQ algorithm

• WFFQ : picks the first packet that

would complete service among the set
of packets that have started service in
the corresponding FFQ
 WFFQ and WFQ
EXAMPLE (1)

– All packets have the same size 1 and link speed is 1

Guaranteed rate for connection 1 : 0.5
Guaranteed rate for connection 2-11 : 0.05

Connection 1 sends 11 back-to-back packets at time 0

Connection 2-11 sends 1 packet at time 0
– The completion time of connection 1 :
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22
– The completion time of connection 2 – 11 : 20
 WFFQ and WFQ
EXAMPLE (2)

Connection 1

Connection 2
…… …………
Connection 11

WFQ Service Order

WFFQ Service Order

WFQ and WFFQ

 VT and WFQ

• All packets are fixed size and require exactly one

second to service
• Starting at time zero, 1000 packets from connection
1 arrive at a rate of 1 packet/second
• Starting at time 900, 450 packets from connection 2
arrive at a rate of 1 packet/second
– The completion times of the 901, 902, 903, … packets of
connection 1 in FFQ system are 1802, 1904, 1806, …
– The completion times of the 1, 2, 3, … packets of
connection 2 in FFQ system are 901, 902, 903, …
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
 DRR

• Each connection is assigned a state variable called

the DC (Deficit Counter).

• At the start of each round, DCi of queue i is

incremented by a specific service share (quantum)

• If the length of the head of the line packet, Li, is less

than or equal to DCi,, the scheduler allows the ith
queue to send a packet.

• Once the transmission is completed DCi is

decremented by Li.
 DRR
Qi DCi
Li 3500 initializing
3500 (1st round)
2800 7800 2000
-2000 Serviced

2800 7800 2000 1500 (2nd round)

+3500 Not serviced

2800 7800 2000 5000 (3rd round)
+3500 -7800 Serviced
2800 7800 2000 700 (4th round)
+3500 -2800 Serviced
2800 7800 2000 1400
 A Downlink Scheduling

Plan

1. RR
2. WRR
3. VT
4. WFQ
5. WFFQ
6. DRR
7. DDRR
 DDRR
• Each connection is assigned a state variable called
the DC (Deficit Counter)

• If the value of the DCi is positive then the

scheduler allows the ith queue to send a packet

• Once the transmission is completed DCi is

decremented by Li, the length of the transmitted
packet

• At the start of the subsequent rounds, DCi is

incremented by a specific service share (quantum)
 DDRR

Qi DCi
3500 initializing
3500 (1st round)
2800 7800 2000
-2000 Serviced
2800 7800 2000 1500 (2nd round)
+3500 -7800 Serviced
-6300 (3 round)
rd
2800 7800 2000
+3500 Not serviced

2800 7800 2000 -2800

+3500 Not serviced
2800 7800 2000 700
+3500 -2800 Serviced
2800 7800 2000 -2100
 III Downlink/Uplink Scheduling
Plan

• A Downlink Scheduling

• B Uplink Scheduling
 B Uplink Scheduling

Uplink scheduling:
– Responsible for the efficient and fair
allocation of the resources (time slots) in the
uplink direction

– Uplink carrier :
• Reserved slots
• contention slots (random access slots)

– The standard scheduling algorithms can be

used
 Bibliography
• http://www.opalsoft.net/qos/WhyQos-2424.htm
• http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~alx/courses/notes/Icc8_2.ppt
• http://www.it.uu.se/edu/course/homepage/datakom/civinght04/schema/s
•