EEE6432 - Wireless Packet Data

Networks and Protocols

Lecture 11-15 – ARQ
Jie Zhang
[email protected]
 Outline
• Data link layer and Framing
• Flow and error control
• Error control for noiseless channels
– Simplest Protocol
– Stop-and-Wait Protocol
• Error control for noisy channels
– Stop-and-Wait Automatic Repeat Request
– Go-Back-N Automatic Repeat Request
– Selective Repeat Automatic Repeat Request
 Recommended books
• For this lecture
– Data Communications and Networking, Fourth Edition, by
Behrouz A. Forouzan, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
• Chapter 11 Data Link Control

– WiKi on ARQ and HARQ

 Acknowledgement

• Slides provided by the book “Data Communications

and Networking”, 4th Edition, The McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc.
 Chapter 11
Data Link Control

11.5 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 11-1 FRAMING

The data link layer needs to pack bits into frames, so

that each frame is distinguishable from another. Our
postal system practices a type of framing. The simple
act of inserting a letter into an envelope separates one
piece of information from another; the envelope serves
as the delimiter.
Topics discussed in this section:
Fixed-Size Framing
Variable-Size Framing

11.6
 Figure 11.1 A frame in a character-oriented protocol

11.7
 Figure 11.2 Byte stuffing and unstuffing

11.8
 Note

Byte stuffing is the process of adding 1

extra byte whenever there is a flag or
escape character in the text.

11.9
 Figure 11.3 A frame in a bit-oriented protocol

11.10
 Note

Bit stuffing is the process of adding one

extra 0 whenever five consecutive 1s
follow a 0 in the data, so that the
receiver does not mistake
the pattern 0111110 for a flag.

11.11
 Figure 11.4 Bit stuffing and unstuffing

11.12
 11-2 FLOW AND ERROR CONTROL

The most important responsibilities of the data link

layer are flow control and error control. Collectively,
these functions are known as data link control.

Topics discussed in this section:

Flow Control
Error Control

11.13
 Note

Flow control refers to a set of procedures

used to restrict the amount of data
that the sender can send before
waiting for acknowledgment.

11.14
 Note

Error control in the data link layer is

based on automatic repeat request
(ARQ), which is the retransmission of
data.

11.15
 11-3 PROTOCOLS

11.16
 Figure 11.5 Taxonomy of protocols discussed in this chapter

11.17
 11-4 NOISELESS CHANNELS

Let us first assume we have an ideal channel in which

no frames are lost, duplicated, or corrupted. We
introduce two protocols for this type of channel.

Topics discussed in this section:

Simplest Protocol
Stop-and-Wait Protocol

11.18
 Figure 11.6 The design of the simplest protocol with no flow or error control

11.19
 Algorithm 11.1 Sender-site algorithm for the simplest protocol

11.20
 Algorithm 11.2 Receiver-site algorithm for the simplest protocol

11.21
 Example 11.1

11.22
 Figure 11.7 Flow diagram for Example 11.1

11.23
  The simplest protocol doesn’t have
flow control.
 How to add flow control into the
simplest protocol?

11.24
 Figure 11.8 Design of Stop-and-Wait Protocol

11.25
 Algorithm 11.3 Sender-site algorithm for Stop-and-Wait Protocol

st nd
Error: the 1 and 2 LOC should change positions.
11.26
 Algorithm 11.4 Receiver-site algorithm for Stop-and-Wait Protocol

11.27
 Example 11.2

Figure 11.9 shows an example of communication using

this protocol. It is still very simple. The sender sends one
frame and waits for feedback from the receiver. When the
ACK arrives, the sender sends the next frame. Note that
sending two frames in the protocol involves the sender in
four events and the receiver in two events.

11.28
 Figure 11.9 Flow diagram for Example 11.2

11.29
 11-5 NOISY CHANNELS

Although the Stop-and-Wait Protocol gives us an idea

of how to add flow control to its predecessor, noiseless
channels are nonexistent. We discuss three protocols
in this section that use error control.

Topics discussed in this section:

Stop-and-Wait Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ)
Go-Back-N Automatic Repeat Request
Selective Repeat Automatic Repeat Request

11.30
 Note

11.31
 Note

11.32
 Note

11.33
 Figure 11.10 Design of the Stop-and-Wait ARQ Protocol

11.34
 Algorithm 11.5 Sender-site algorithm for Stop-and-Wait ARQ

(continued)
11.35
 Algorithm 11.5 Sender-site algorithm for Stop-and-Wait ARQ (continued)

11.36
 Algorithm 11.6 Receiver-site algorithm for Stop-and-Wait ARQ Protocol

11.37
 Example 11.3

Figure 11.11 shows an example of Stop-and-Wait ARQ.

Frame 0 is sent and acknowledged. Frame 1 is lost and
resent after the time-out. The resent frame 1 is
acknowledged and the timer stops. Frame 0 is sent and
acknowledged, but the acknowledgment is lost. The
sender has no idea if the frame or the acknowledgment
is lost, so after the time-out, it resends frame 0, which is
acknowledged.

11.38
 Figure 11.11 Flow diagram for Example 11.3

11.39
  What is the problem of Stop-and-Wait
ARQ?

11.40
 Example 11.4

Assume that, in a Stop-and-Wait ARQ system, the

bandwidth of the line is 1 Mbps, and 1 bit takes 20 ms to
make a round trip. What is the bandwidth-delay product?
If the system data frames are 1000 bits in length, what is
the utilization percentage of the link?

Solution
The bandwidth-delay product is

11.41
 Example 11.4 (continued)

The system can send 20,000 bits during the time it takes
for the data to go from the sender to the receiver and then
back again. However, the system sends only 1000 bits. We
can say that the link utilization is only 1000/20,000, or 5
percent. For this reason, for a link with a high bandwidth
or long delay, the use of Stop-and-Wait ARQ wastes the
capacity of the link.

11.42
 Example 11.5

What is the utilization percentage of the link in

Example 11.4 if we have a protocol that can send up to
15 frames before stopping and worrying about the
acknowledgments?

Solution
The bandwidth-delay product is still 20,000 bits. The
system can send up to 15 frames or 15,000 bits during a
round trip. This means the utilization is 15,000/20,000, or
75 percent. Of course, if there are damaged frames, the
utilization percentage is much less because frames have
to be resent.
11.43
  How to improve the efficiency of
Stop-and-Wait ARQ?

11.44
 Note

11.45
 Figure 11.12 Send window for Go-Back-N ARQ

11.46
 Note

The send window is an abstract concept

defining an imaginary box of size 2m − 1
with three variables: Sf, Sn, and Ssize.

11.47
 Note

The send window can slide one

or more slots when a valid
acknowledgment arrives.

11.48
 Figure 11.13 Receive window for Go-Back-N ARQ

11.49
 Note

The receive window is an abstract

concept defining an imaginary box
of size 1 with one single variable Rn.
The window slides
when a correct frame has arrived;
sliding occurs one slot at a time.

11.50
 Figure 11.14 Design of Go-Back-N ARQ

11.51
 Figure 11.15 Window size for Go-Back-N ARQ

11.52
 Note

11.53
 Algorithm 11.7 Go-Back-N sender algorithm

(continued)
11.54
 Algorithm 11.7 Go-Back-N sender algorithm (continued)

//Error:

SendFrame (Temp);

Temp = Temp+1;
11.55
 Algorithm 11.8 Go-Back-N receiver algorithm

11.56
 Example 11.6
Figure 11.16 shows an example of Go-Back-N. This is an
example of a case where the forward channel is reliable,
but the reverse is not. No data frames are lost, but some
ACKs are delayed and one is lost. The example also
shows how cumulative acknowledgments can help if
acknowledgments are delayed or lost. After initialization,
there are seven sender events. Request events are
triggered by data from the network layer; arrival events
are triggered by acknowledgments from the physical
layer. There is no time-out event here because all
outstanding frames are acknowledged before the timer
expires. Note that although ACK 2 is lost, ACK 3 serves
as both ACK 2 and ACK 3.
11.57
 Figure 11.16 Flow diagram for Example 11.6

11.58
 Example 11.7

Figure 11.17 shows what happens when a frame is lost.

Frames 0, 1, 2, and 3 are sent. However, frame 1 is lost.
The receiver receives frames 2 and 3, but they are
discarded because they are received out of order. The
sender receives no acknowledgment about frames 1, 2, or
3. Its timer finally expires. The sender sends all
outstanding frames (1, 2, and 3) because it does not know
what is wrong. Note that the resending of frames 1, 2, and
3 is the response to one single event. When the sender is
responding to this event, it cannot accept the triggering of
other events. This means that when ACK 2 arrives, the
sender is still busy with sending frame 3.
11.59
 Example 11.7 (continued)

The physical layer must wait until this event is completed

and the data link layer goes back to its sleeping state. We
have shown a vertical line to indicate the delay. It is the
same story with ACK 3; but when ACK 3 arrives, the
sender is busy responding to ACK 2. It happens again
when ACK 4 arrives. Note that before the second timer
expires, all outstanding frames have been sent and the
timer is stopped.

11.60
 Figure 11.17 Flow diagram for Example 11.7

Error 1: Sn

should point to

4.

11.61
 Note

Stop-and-Wait ARQ is a special case of

Go-Back-N ARQ in which the size of the
send window is 1.

11.62
 Selective Repeat ARQ
• Go-Back-N ARQ simplifies the process at the receiver
site.
– The receiver keeps track of only one variable
– There is no need to buffer out-of-order frames, they are
simply discarded.
• However, this protocol is very inefficient for a noisy
link.
– In a noisy link a frame has a higher probability of damage,
which means the resending of multiple frames.
– This resending uses up the bandwidth and slows down the
transmission.
 Selective Repeat ARQ
• For noisy links, there is another mechanism that does
not resend N frames when just one frame is
damaged; only the damaged frame is resent.
• This mechanism is called Selective Repeat ARQ.
• It is more efficient for noisy links, but the processing
at the receiver is more complex.
 Windows
• The Selective Repeat Protocol also uses two
windows: a send window and a receive window.
• However, there are differences between the windows
in this protocol and the ones in Go-Back-N.
– First, the size of the send window is much smaller, 2m-1.
– Second, the receive window is the same size as the send
window.
 Windows
• The send window maximum size can be 2m-1.
– If m = 4, the sequence numbers go from 0 to 15, but the size
of the window is just 8 (it is 15 in the Go-Back-N Protocol).
• The smaller window size means less efficiency in filling
the pipe, but the fact that there are fewer duplicate
frames can compensate for this.
• The protocol uses the same variables as we discussed
for Go-Back-N.
• We show the Selective Repeat send window in Figure
11.18 to emphasize the size. Compare it with Figure
11.12.
 Figure 11.18 Send window for Selective Repeat ARQ

11.67
 Figure 11.12 Send window for Go-Back-N ARQ

11.68
 Figure 11.19 Receive window for Selective Repeat ARQ

11.69
 Receive window
• The receive window in Selective Repeat is totally
different from the one in Go-Back-N.
• The size of the receive window is the same as the
size of the send window (2m-1).
• The Selective Repeat Protocol allows as many frames
as the size of the receive window to arrive out of
order and be kept until there is a set of in-order
frames to be delivered to the network layer.
 Receive window
• Because the sizes of the send window and receive
window are the same, all the frames in the send frame
can arrive out of order and be stored until they can be
delivered.
• We need, however, to mention that the receiver never
delivers packets out of order to the network layer.
• Figure 11.19 shows the receive window in this protocol.
Those slots inside the window that are coloured define
frames that have arrived out of order and are waiting
for their neighbours to arrive before delivery to the
network layer.
 Figure 11.20 Design of Selective Repeat ARQ

11.72
 Window Sizes
• We can now show why the size of the sender and
receiver windows must be at most one-half of 2m.
• For an example, we choose m = 2, which means the
size of the window is 2m/2, or 2.
• Figure 11.21 compares a window size of 2 with a
window size of 3.
 Window Sizes
• If the size of the window is 2 and all acknowledgments are
lost, the timer for frame 0 expires and frame 0 is resent.
However, the window of the receiver is now expecting
frame 2, not frame 0, so this duplicate frame is correctly
discarded.
• When the size of the window is 3 and all
acknowledgments are lost, the sender sends a duplicate
of frame 0.
• However, this time, the window of the receiver expects to
receive frame 0 (0 is part of the window), so it accepts
frame 0, not as a duplicate, but as the first frame in the
next cycle. This is clearly an error.
 Figure 11.21 Selective Repeat ARQ, window size

11.75
 Note

In Selective Repeat ARQ, the size of the

sender and receiver window
must be at most one-half of 2m.

11.76
 Algorithm 11.9 Sender-site Selective Repeat algorithm

(continued)

11.77
 Algorithm 11.9 Sender-site Selective Repeat algorithm (continued)

11.78 (continued)
 Algorithm 11.9 Sender-site Selective Repeat algorithm (continued)

11.79
 Analysis – Sender Site
• The handling of the request event is similar to that of the
previous protocol except that one timer is started for
each frame sent.
• The arrival event is more complicated here.
• An ACK or a NAK frame may arrive.
– If a valid NAK frame arrives, we just resend the corresponding
frame.
– If a valid ACK arrives, we use a loop to purge the buffers, stop
the corresponding timer, and move the left wall of the window.
• The time-out event is simpler here; only the frame which
times out is resent.
 Algorithm 11.10 Receiver-site Selective Repeat algorithm

11.81
 Algorithm 11.10 Receiver-site Selective Repeat algorithm

11.82
 Analysis – Receiver Site
• Here we need more initialization.
– In order not to overwhelm the other side with NAKs, we
use a variable called NakSent.
– To know when we need to send an ACK, we use a variable
called AckNeeded. Both of these are initialized to false.
– We also use a set of variables to mark the slots in the
receive window once the corresponding frame has arrived
and is stored.
 Analysis – Receiver Site
• If we receive a corrupted frame and a NAK has not
yet been sent, we send a NAK to tell the other site
that we have not received the frame we expected.
• If the frame is not corrupted and the sequence
number is in the window, we store the frame and
mark the slot.
• If contiguous frames, starting from Rn, have been
marked, we deliver their data to the network layer
and slide the window.
• Figure 11.22 shows this situation.
 Figure 11.22 Delivery of data in Selective Repeat ARQ

11.85
 Example 11.8

This example is similar to Example 11.3 in which frame 1

is lost. We show how Selective Repeat behaves in this
case. Figure 11.23 shows the situation. One main
difference is the number of timers. Here, each frame sent
or resent needs a timer, which means that the timers need
to be numbered (0, 1, 2, and 3). The timer for frame 0
starts at the first request, but stops when the ACK for this
frame arrives. The timer for frame 1 starts at the second
request, restarts when a NAK arrives, and finally stops
when the last ACK arrives. The other two timers start
when the corresponding frames are sent and stop at the
last arrival event.
11.86
 Example 11.8 (continued)

At the receiver site we need to distinguish between the

acceptance of a frame and its delivery to the network
layer. At the second arrival, frame 2 arrives and is stored
and marked, but it cannot be delivered because frame 1 is
missing. At the next arrival, frame 3 arrives and is
marked and stored, but still none of the frames can be
delivered. Only at the last arrival, when finally a copy of
frame 1 arrives, can frames 1, 2, and 3 be delivered to the
network layer. There are two conditions for the delivery
of frames to the network layer: First, a set of consecutive
frames must have arrived. Second, the set starts from the
beginning of the window.
11.87
 Example 11.8 (continued)

Another important point is that a NAK is sent after the

second arrival, but not after the third, although both
situations look the same. The reason is that the protocol
does not want to crowd the network with unnecessary
NAKs and unnecessary resent frames. The second NAK
would still be NAK1 to inform the sender to resend frame
1 again; this has already been done. The first NAK sent is
remembered (using the nakSent variable) and is not sent
again until the frame slides. A NAK is sent once for each
window position and defines the first slot in the window.

11.88
 Example 11.8 (continued)

The next point is about the ACKs. Notice that only two
ACKs are sent here. The first one acknowledges only the
first frame; the second one acknowledges three frames. In
Selective Repeat, ACKs are sent when data are delivered to
the network layer. If the data belonging to n frames are
delivered in one shot, only one ACK is sent for all of them.

11.89
 Figure 11.23 Flow diagram for Example 11.8

11.90