Distributed Fair Scheduling Using Variable Transmission Lengths in Carrier-Sensing-Based Wireless Networks

The fairness of IEEE 802.11 wireless networks (including Wireless LAN and Ad-hoc networks) is hard to predict and control because of the randomness and complexity of the MAC contentions and dynamics. Moreover, asymmetric channel conditions such as those caused by capture and channel errors often lead to severe unfairness among stations. In this paper the authors propose a novel distributed scheduling algorithm that they call VLS, for "Variable-Length Scheduling", that provides weighted fairness to all stations despite the imperfections of the MAC layer and physical channels.