Sarkar, NIMemon, SKAl-Anbuky, A2016-05-042016-05-042016-03-072016-03-07Wireless Networks, Vol.22 (2), doi: 10.1007/s11276-016-1236-91022-0038https://hdl.handle.net/10292/9766The increasingly use of wireless local area networks (WLANs) in public safety and emergency network services demands for a strict quality of service (QoS) guarantee especially a large number of users report an emergency for immediate channel access. Unfortunately, the traditional IEEE 802.11e-based enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) does not support a strict QoS guarantee for life saving emergency traffic under high loads. Previous studies have attempted to enhance the performance of EDCA called the Channel Preemtive EDCA (CP-EDCA) which is a promising idea to support emergency traffic in WLANs. However, CP-EDCA supports a single emergency traffic only (i.e. no emergency service differentiation) with high delays for increased traffic loads. To overcome this problem, we propose a class of EDCA protocol called Multiple Preemption EDCA (MPEDCA) as a candidate to support multiple emergency traffics under high loads. Each MP-EDCA node can support up to four emergency traffics (life, health, property and environment) with different priorities in addition to support background (non-emergency) traffic. The proposed protocol privileged the high priority life-saving emergency traffic to preempt the services of low priority ones without much starvation in the network to maintain a strict QoS guarantee. The paper evaluates the performance of MPEDCA through an extensive analysis of simulation outcome. The results obtained show that MP-EDCA outperforms CP-EDCA in achieving lower medium access control and emergency node delays.An author may self-archive an author-created version of his/her article on his/her own website and or in his/her institutional repository. He/she may also deposit this version on his/her funder’s or funder’s designated repository at the funder’s request or as a result of a legal obligation, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after official publication. He/ she may not use the publisher's PDF version, which is posted on www.springerlink.com, for the purpose of self-archiving or deposit. Furthermore, the author may only post his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. (Please also see Publisher’s Version and Citation).Enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA); 802.11e; Medium access control; Quality of service (QoS)Journal ArticleOpenAccess10.1007/s11276-016-1236-9