UC Santa Cruz

Rate adaptation in a digital wireless communication network is performed by measuring by a wireless node data throughput values attained while communicating at different data rates on a channel in the network. The node calculates from the measured throughput alone a current transmission rate without any a priori knowledge of a state of the channel. The transmission rate calculation involves calculating a ratio of the measured throughput with respect to an exponential weighted moving average of the measured throughput. By repeating the measurements and calculations periodically, the rate used for transmission by the node is adapted automatically.