A real-time (RT) network is like a traditional computer network with one important difference: packets have deadlines. ``Real-time'' does not necessarily mean full motion video or audio for speech. It just means there are deadlines that must be honored. This is done at the LLC layer by scheduling transmission while taking queueing delay, blocking, and so on into account. When the LLC layer presents frames to a MAC layer for a wireless channel, the MAC layer has the difficult job of transmitting the frames by their deadlines on a random access channel. The papers below go into more (excruciating??) detail...

Papers

Open Literature

• Fully Distributed Wireless MAC Transmission of Real-Time Data. IEEE RTAS '98. (June '98.)
• Wireless Transmission of Heterogeneous Real-Time Data. IEEE VTC '98. (May '98.)
• Real-Time Wireless Communication Using Splitting Protocols. IEEE GLOBECOM '97. (November '97, approx. 444 kbytes, 9 pp.)
• Blocked and Free Access Real-Time Splitting Protocols. Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, Special Issue on Real-Time Engineering. (May '98, approx. 590 kbytes, 22 pp., send me email if you'd like an ICAE LaTeX bibliography style file, icae.bst, I made.)
• Wireless MAC Protocols for Real-Time Battlefield Communications. IEEE MILCOM '97. (November '97.)
• Evaluation of Wireless Soft Real-Time Protocols. IEEE RTAS '96. (June '96, approx. 170 kbytes, 8 pp.)

Government Publications

• Performance Evaluation of a Modified Aloha Protocol for Tactical Radio Communications. US Army Research Lab Technical Report ('96, approx. 303 kbytes, 16 pp.)
• Analysis of a Soft Real-Time Random Access Protocol. US Army Research Laboratory Technical Report ('96, approx. 238 kbytes, 16 pp., slight modification of UDel Tech Report below.)
• Research Directions in Real-Time Systems. US Army Research Lab Technical Report ('95, appox. 224 kbytes).

Other

• Analysis of a Soft Real-Time Random Access Protocol. University of Delaware Technical Report 96-02 ('95, approx. 190 kbytes, 18 pp.)

PhD Related

• Dissertation: Design and Anlysis of Wireless Real-Time Data Link Layer Protocols
  
• PhD Dissertation Proposal: Design and Analysis of Real-Time Protocols for Wireless Networks, ('95, 184 kbytes, 15 pp.) This is the scope of my research -- at least as predicted when written.
• Committee comments on proposal.

Related Papers by Others

• Window MAC Protocols for Real-Time Communication Services is by Arvind, Ramamritham, and Stankovic and studies a group of real-time MAC protocols for CSMA-CD LANs. (Approx. 1/2 Mbyte, 35 pp.)

Real-Time Web Sites

• The IEEE Real-Time Research Repository.
• University of Massachusetts Real-Time Systems Laboratory.
• University of Michigan Real-Time Computing Laboratory.
• New Jersey Institute of Technology Real Time Computing Lab.
• Linear programming is not practical for use in RT systems. However, if your system is small enough to be able to generate after-the-fact optimal solutions for baselining, check out Michael Trick's Operations Research Page with its huge collection of pointers.