Uplink registration-based MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11ah networks

IEEE 802.11ah (Wi-Fi HaLow) operates in license-exempt ISM bands below 1 GHz and provides longer-range connectivity. The main advantage of the IEEE 802.11ah is it provides long range connection with low power consumption. RAW (Restricted Access Window) in IEEE 802.11ah helps to reduce the collision probability and enhance the network throughput when many stations contend the channel. Since stations are assigned to uplink RAW slots based on their Association Identifications (AID), the number of stations that have uplink data packets in each RAW slot is a big difference. It results in low fairness among stations. The paper proposes an uplink registration-based MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11ah networks (UR-MAC). In UR-MAC protocol, stations with uplink data will register with the AP by attaching the uplink registration to the data packet during downlink communications. The AP will allocate RAW slots based on the uplink registered station list. The UR-MAC protocol tries to use up the resources of the RAW slots as well as balance the number of stations with uplink data among the RAW slots. Through the evaluation and comparison analysis, the UR-MAC protocol significantly improves the fairness index compared to the IEEE 802.11ah protocol while still ensuring the probability of successful transmission, the average number of successfully transmitted packets, and power efficiency compared to the IEEE 802.11ah protocol.