Strengthening Real Time Communication Support In Wireless Networks

In a distributed real-time wireless communication system the timely delivery of data in the presence of interference and competition for the medium is a key requirement. Typically this is addressed by employing time division multiple access style approaches. The modification of a transmission schedule in such a system in order to cater for example failed transmissions requires the consensus of participating hosts. Reaching this consensus may in turn require the exchange of a number of messages, result in high latency for messages of failed transmissions and ultimately mean the missing of real-time deadlines. We propose a framework that reduces the amount of coordination among participating hosts and that permits individual hosts to make autonomous localised decisions about their transmission schedule. This autonomy is achieved through a restructuring of the original TDMA approach and allows hosts to focus on the fulfillment of their individual deadlines, which in turn should increase the meeting of deadlines in the overall system.