FAIR-AX: QoS-Aware Fair Resource Allocation Scheme for IEEE 802.11ax Networks

IEEE 802.11ax wireless local area networks (WLANs) are more densely deployed than earlier WLANs, suggesting higher throughput and lower latency. As more people around the world use the internet, the number of access point installations has increased significantly in places such as shopping malls, airports, trains, and office buildings. Because of this, overlapping transmission areas and access points that interfere with each other are now common. Applications that need high data rates and low latency, like voice calls and HD video streaming, are impacted by this. The network is slowed down by excessive network traffic brought on by disorganized channel access. The resource allocation scheme FAIR-AX, which is more equitable and cognizant of Quality of Service (QoS) to lessen interference and enhance network performance, is discussed in this paper. To guarantee equitable resource distribution, it employs a two-level proportional-fair (PF) algorithm to reallocate airtime budgets between Access Points (APs) and transmission opportunities (TXOPs) among connected stations. The FAIR-AX algorithm employs proportional-fair airtime sharing in place of basic throughput allocation to increase fairness and enhance QoS. The TXOP and transmission power thresholds are dynamically adjusted to maintain coordination between nearby service stations. The results of the simulation show that FAIR-AX considerably raises the network's overall fairness, attaining a higher fairness index above 0.9 across the interfering service stations. Further, the proposed scheme compares favorably with the recent Low-QoS (LQ-STA) station-priority mechanism and legacy 802.11 stations. FAIR-AX achieves a balanced trade-off between fairness, throughput efficiency, and transmission latency, making it a suitable framework for next-generation high-density WLAN environments.