A2P: A Scalable OFDMA Polling Algorithm for Time-Sensitive Wi-Fi Networks

Abstract: Over the years, advancements such as increased bandwidth, new modulation and coding schemes, frame aggregation, and the use of multiple antennas have been employed to enhance Wi-Fi performance. Nonetheless, as network density and the demand for low-latency applications increases, contention delays and retransmissions have become obstacles to efficient Wi-Fi deployment in modern scenarios. The introduction of Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in the IEEE 802.11 standard allows simultaneous transmissions to and from multiple users within the same transmission opportunity, thereby reducing the contention. However, the AP must efficiently manage the resource allocation, particularly in uplink scenarios where it lacks prior knowledge of users' buffer statuses, thus making polling a critical bottleneck in networks with a high number of users with sporadic traffic pattern. This paper addresses the polling problem and introduces the A2P algorithm, designed to enable scalable and efficient polling in high-density OFDMA-based time sensitive Wi-Fi networks. Simulation results show that A2P outperforms the alternative schemes by maintaining significantly lower delay and packet loss in dense time-sensitive teleconferencing scenario.