Ultra Wide Band WLANs: A self-configuring resource control scheme for accessing UWB hot-spots with QoS guarantees

In the framework of wireless access networks the Hot-Spot concept is attracting several operators. In a Hot- Spot near stationary terminals may reach one or more Radio Access Points (RAP) offering wireless access to the fixed network. Mobile terminals should be able to register to the network, associate to a RAP and activate a wireless communication supporting given bit rates and Quality of Service (QoS) features. Several mobile users, requiring different services, enter and exit the Hot- Spot. In this scenario network operators should have the opportunity to configure quickly radio resources to serve the mobile terminals and to handle efficiently the network resources in order to maximize the income. Among the different technologies emerging in this field, we investigate the feasibility of a wireless access based on Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio, combined with a flexible admission control scheme based on transmission power selection. We employ UWB in unlicensed mode, i. e., we operate in accordance to the limits imposed by the regulatory bodies (e. g., US Federal Communications Commission). The flexibility of the admission control depends mainly on the capability of a mobile terminal of "measuring" the environment it is entering and thus supporting the RAP in the selection of the appropriate transmission parameters. The proposed approach provides an admission policy based on the Maximum Extra Interference (MEI) and selects the power level through a simple interaction among the involved mobile terminals. The information for basing the decision on is collected through measurements and signaling. In order to increase the system efficiency, transmission parameters are selected in accordance to a "balancing" criterion (thus Balanced- MEI, B-MEI). The B-MEI approach keeps quite simple the admission of new mobile terminals in a RAP's area but contemporarily satisfies the trade-off between fair resource assignment and system efficiency. This is a key trade- off in wireless access systems where interference effects determine the upper limit of the number of users that can be admitted in the network.