Abstract:

IEEE 802.11ah and IEEE 802.15.4g are two wire-less technologies designed for outdoor IoT applications. Bothtechnologies have communication range up to 1000 meters.Therefore, 802.11ah network and 802.15.4g network are likely tocoexist. Our simulation results show that using standard definedcoexistence mechanisms, 802.11ah network can severely interferewith 802.15.4g network and lead to significant packet loss in802.15.4g network. As a result, additional coexistence controlmechanisms are needed. Due to asymmetrical features suchas modulation scheme and frame structure, 802.11ah devicesand 802.15.4g devices cannot perform automatic cooperation.Thus, self-coexistence control techniques are preferred. Thispaper proposes learning based self-coexistence control techniquesfor 802.11ah devices to mitigate the interference impact of802.11ah network on 802.15.4g network. We first present a a-Fairness based energy detection clear channel assessment (ED-CCA) method that enables 802.11ah devices to detect moreongoing 802.15.4g packet transmissions. We then introduce aQ-Learning based backoff mechanism for 802.11ah devices toavoid interfering with 802.15.4g packet transmission process.The proposed coexistence techniques can achieve fair spectrumsharing between 802.11ah network and 802.15.4g network.