As users become more comfortable using IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks, the need for quality of service is becoming more important because of the lack of support in current standards and the increase of multimedia traffic over the Internet. The IEEE 802.11 working group has recognized this fact proposing the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), a priority-based distributed scheme meant to provide service differentiation. EDCA relies on either different Arbitrary Interframe Space (AIFS), or Contention Window (CW) parameters, or both to provide service differentiation. In this thesis, a performance evaluation of the EDCA using five different combinations of the above mentioned parameters is included and compared to the current DCF (Distributed Coordination Function) standard, which is used as the base case. Simulation results show that simpler schemes based on one parameter alone can provide good average service differentiation. However, only multiparameter schemes provide the average and instantaneous high throughput and low delay values needed to support streaming applications. Starvation is a problem spanning all these schemes. It is especially more pronounced in schemes using combinations of parameters. In this thesis, a measurement-based admission control mechanism is proposed to overcome the above stated problems. The admission control mechanism uses an algorithm that admits a flow depending on the jitter values for high priority traffic and the throughput of the low priority traffic. It also allows the administrator to set the bandwidth sharing policy between the high priority traffic and low priority traffic. Results show that the admission control mechanism not only protects existing high priority flows from jitter and low priority flows from starvation, but also improves upon the network utilization.

Increasing number of ageing population and people who need continuous health monitoring and rising the costs of health care have triggered the concept of the novel wireless technology-driven human body monitoring. Human body monitoring can be performed using a network of small and intelligent wireless medical sensors which may be attached to the body surface or implanted into the tissues. It enables carers to predict, diagnose, and react to adverse events earlier than ever. The concept of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) was introduced to fully exploit the benefits of wireless technologies in telemedicine and m-health. The main focus of this research is the design and performance evaluation of strategies and architectures that would allow seamless and efficient interconnection of patient’s body area network and the stationary (e.g., hospital room or ward) wireless networks. I first introduce the architecture of a healthcare system which bridges WBANs and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). I adopt IEEE 802.15.6 standard for the patient’s body network because it is specifically designed for WBANs. Since IEEE 802.15.6 has strict Quality of Service (QoS) and priorities to transfer the medical data to the medical server a QoS-enabled WLAN for the next hop is needed to preserve the end-to-end QoS. IEEE 802.11e standard is selected for the WLAN in the hospital room or ward because it provides prioritization for the stations in the network. I investigate in detail the requirements posed by different healthcare parameters and to analyze the performance of various alternative interconnection strategies, using the rigorous mathematical apparatus of Queuing Theory and Probabilistic Analysis; these results are independently validated through discrete event simulation models. This thesis has three main parts; performance evaluation and MAC parameters settings of IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), performance evaluation and tuning the MAC parameters of IEEE 802.15.6, and designing a seamless and efficient interconnection strategy which bridges IEEE 802.11e EDCA and IEEE 802.15.6 standards for a healthcare system.

Increasing number of ageing population and people who need continuous health monitoring and rising the costs of health care have triggered the concept of the novel wireless technology-driven human body monitoring. Human body monitoring can be performed using a network of small and intelligent wireless medical sensors which may be attached to the body surface or implanted into the tissues. It enables carers to predict, diagnose, and react to adverse events earlier than ever. The concept of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) was introduced to fully exploit the benefits of wireless technologies in telemedicine and m-health. The main focus of this research is the design and performance evaluation of strategies and architectures that would allow seamless and efficient interconnection of patient’s body area network and the stationary (e.g., hospital room or ward) wireless networks. I first introduce the architecture of a healthcare system which bridges WBANs and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). I adopt IEEE 802.15.6 standard for the patient’s body network because it is specifically designed for WBANs. Since IEEE 802.15.6 has strict Quality of Service (QoS) and priorities to transfer the medical data to the medical server a QoS-enabled WLAN for the next hop is needed to preserve the end-to-end QoS. IEEE 802.11e standard is selected for the WLAN in the hospital room or ward because it provides prioritization for the stations in the network. I investigate in detail the requirements posed by different healthcare parameters and to analyze the performance of various alternative interconnection strategies, using the rigorous mathematical apparatus of Queuing Theory and Probabilistic Analysis; these results are independently validated through discrete event simulation models. This thesis has three main parts; performance evaluation and MAC parameters settings of IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), performance evaluation and tuning the MAC parameters of IEEE 802.15.6, and designing a seamless and efficient interconnection strategy which bridges IEEE 802.11e EDCA and IEEE 802.15.6 standards for a healthcare system.

La maîtrise de la QoS dans 802.11e EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Coordination Function) ne peut être assurée que par un mécanisme de contrôle d'admission qui empêche le réseau d'atteindre un état de saturation critique et par la même garantit les besoins de QoS des applications voix/vidéo.<br />Ce mécanisme de contrôle d'admission a besoin pour sa prise de décision de prédire les métriques de performances si un nouveau flux est admis. Dans le but de rendre les décisions efficaces, nous choisissons d'utiliser une méthode de prédiction basée sur un modèle analytique. Ce dernier doit remplir deux conditions : 1) fournir une bonne précision de prédiction et 2) avoir une complexité numérique faible et un temps de réponse limité. Vu que la majorité des modèles analytiques de la littérature ne satisfont pas à ces deux conditions, nous développons un nouveau modèle analytique pour EDCA qui est capable de prédire le débit et le délai d'accès des différentes Access Category (AC) d'EDCA.<br />Ainsi, après la modélisation analytique du temps de transmission des ACs en prenant en compte le paramètre de différentiation TXOPLimit, nous développons un modèle analytique pour EDCA sous la forme d'une chaîne de Markov à quatre dimensions. Celui-ci est développé d'abord dans les conditions de saturation puis étendu aux conditions générales de trafic.<br />Pour finir, nous proposons un algorithme de contrôle d'admission à implémenter au sein du point d'accès et qui utilise le modèle analytique proposé. Nous proposons un abaque de solution d'optimisation des paramètres d'accès d'EDCA. Le but étant d'améliorer les performances du mécanisme de contrôle d'admission par l'utilisation optimale des ressources du réseau.