Background Traffic-Aware Rate Adaptation for IEEE 802.11: Implementation and Test-Bed Experimental Results

IEEE 802.11-based devices employ rate adaptation algorithms to dynamically switch data rates to accommodate the fluctuating wireless channel conditions. This paper designs and implements a new Background traffic aware rate adaptation algorithm (BEWARE) in Linux-based device driver. The proposed rate adaptation algorithm makes rate decisions by on-the-fly estimating the expected packet transmission time which captures both current wireless channel and background traffic conditions. The test-bed experiment results show that BEWARE outperforms other rate adaptation algorithms by up to 150% in various indoor and outdoor scenarios.