Polling Strategy for Wireless Multimedia LANs

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are a viable technology for multimedia traffic. One of the most common WLANs standards being adopted as a mature technology is the IEEE 802.11 standard. This paper presents a new polling strategy for wireless multimedia LANs with variable packet lengths, which synchronizes polling and transmission of the information packets. A mathematical model based on imbedded Markov chain theory and the generation function was used to predict the mean queue length and information packet waiting time. The efficiency of the new strategy was validated by mathematical analysis and simulations. The results show that parallel system’s mean queue length, information packet waiting time, and polling cycle time are all less than for the non-parallel system and that the improved system is more stable and has greater capacity.