Boosting WLAN Performance Using a Hybrid Network-on-Chip Routing Architecture with Predictive Congestion Avoidance
Received: 5 February 2026 | Revised: 23 February 2026 | Accepted: 10 March 2026 | Online: 6 June 2026
Corresponding author: Malathi Naddunoori
Abstract
The growing needs for high-throughput and low-latency Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have created the need for efficient and congestion-aware routing architectures. Traditional Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures based solely on either packet switching or circuit switching are often subject to latency overhead, resource underutilization, and high power usage in dynamic traffic conditions. This paper presents a Hybrid NoC-based WLAN routing architecture that merges Static Switch Allocator (SSA), Parallel Virtual Switch Allocator (PVSA) and Lookup-Ahead Bypass Route Computation (LBRC). The suggested architecture is a synergistic approach of integrating deterministic routing and predictive congestion avoidance to enhance throughput, reliability, and hardware efficiency. The system was implemented on an Artix-7 FPGA and evaluated under realistic traffic conditions. The experimental results show 93% reduction in the number of Look-Up Tables (LUTs), a 33% reduction in total power consumption, and a 32% reduction in overall timing delay compared with the traditional NoC architecture. Further, the suggested system enables the doubling of bandwidth (100 Mb/s to 200 Mb/s), reduces hop count, improves Quality of Service (QoS) to 95%, and significantly reduces the Bit Error Rate (BER). Unlike current hybrid NoC models, the current design integrates predictive bypass routing that is dynamically configured in response to the dynamics of WLAN traffic to provide a scalable and hardware-efficient solution to next-generation and beyond 5G wireless networks.
Keywords:
hybrid switching, virtual circuit switching, WLAN router design, power efficiency, dynamic routing flexibility, Static Switch Allocator (SSA)References
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Copyright (c) 2026 Malathi Naddunoori, M. Devanathan
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