Applying Time Diversity for Improved Reliability in a Real-Time Heterogeneous MAC Protocol

Supporting real-time applications over wireless networks is challenging for several reasons. The medium access control (MAC) layer has a key role in enabling real-time guarantees by providing bounded access time to the transmission medium. Unfortunately, even when timely access is granted, transmissions can still be compromised, specially in the wireless domain, due to the unreliable transmission medium. A common way to increase the reliability of a communication system is to apply redundancy in the form of time diversity, i.e., transmitting several copies of the same message at different points in time. In this paper we propose a wireless MAC protocol capable of handling traffic with different levels of criticality and where transmissions and retransmissions are tailored to deadlines, so that the reliability of the communication system is increased and real-time guarantees can be provided. We focus on the traffic scheduling problem, and extend an already existing solution, Time-Triggered Ethernet, suitable for real-time traffic over wired multi-hop networks. The extension enables transmission of heterogeneous traffic over hybrid wired-wireless networks, and provides timely retransmissions in the wireless segment, such that the real-time guarantees are met. Further, we are able to schedule traffic to better cope with interference patterns of different duration, frequency and level of persistence. The results show that the MAC protocol can be successfully applied to combat different kinds of interference while meeting real-time deadlines.