在無線隨建即連網路中利用路由器輔助的TCP擁塞控制技術


A New TCP Congestion Control Mechanism over Wireless Ad Hoc Networks by Router-Assisted Approach


蕭和政

隨著網路訊務流量的快速成長和無線網路技術日漸成熟,如何妥善的運用有限的網路資源 是一個成功擁塞控制機制要面對的根本問題。TCP為現行網路上最廣為使用的傳輸層協定 ,並且有許多的不同版本被提出來改進其效能上的問題,例如TCP NewReno,TCP SACK 及 TCP Vegas等。然而由於TCP傳送端並未具有網路內部狀態的資訊,如可用頻寬等,大部份 的TCP擁塞控制機制僅能依賴封包遺失做為觸發擁塞控制的指標。許多研究指出在無線的 環境下TCP無法有效使用有限的資源並且分辨封包遺失的原因,因而造成整體的效能不佳 。本篇研究提出一個藉由路由器輔助的TCP擁塞控制協定-TCP Muzha,仰賴路由器提供調 速資訊,以幫助傳送端能不依靠封包遺失進行傳輸速度控制,並可更快速的達到最佳的傳 輸速度。本研究同時提出模糊化的多層級速率調整方法,藉由動態所獲得的細膩資訊做擁 塞避免及因應無線環境下因路由改變或傳輸介質不穩所產生的不必要傳輸速度減低。最後 我們在NS2模擬器上對所提出的協定做效能評估,實驗結果顯示本協定除了能有效的避免 擁塞外,並能減少不必要的降速及重傳封包的次數。

Communication networks have evolved tremendously in the past decades. TCP is the most dominant and deployed end-to-end transport protocol across Internet today and will continue to be in the foresee future. It has numerous enhancing versions for wired network such as TCP Reno, TCP NewReno and TCP Vegas to improve the drawbacks of initial version of TCP. As IEEE 802.11 wireless network technology gains popularity, TCP is very likely to be popular for existing applications so far. However due to unawareness of network conditions, regular TCP is not able to fully control the limited resources and distinguish packet loss from congestion loss and random loss. Based on such implicit assumption, many studies have shown this would results in serious performance degradation in wireless environment. In this paper, we proposed a new TCP congestion control mechanism by router-assisted approach which is inspired by the concept of each wireless node playing the roles of terminal and router simultaneously. Based on the information feedback from routers, sender is able to adjust the sending speed dynamically in order to avoid overshooting problem. We also proposed a multilevel date rate adjustment method to control the date rate more precisely. Finally we evaluate the performance of our approach by NS2 simulator. Our proposed protocol has 5~10% higher throughput than TCP NewReno and much less number of retransmission. The fairness requirement is also achieved while our proposed protocol coexists with other major TCP variants. Keyword: TCP, Congestion Control, router, MANET