Optimization based rate allocation and scheduling in TDMA based wireless mesh networks

Abstract

Wireless mesh networking is a promising technology for building broadband wireless access networks. However, wireless mesh networks based on CSMA/CA MAC protocols suffer from unfairness and poor QoS support. Using TCP as a rate control mechanism in such networks further exacerbates the problem. Efficient rate allocation and scheduling algorithms that handle both multicast and unicast traffic in wireless mesh networks are needed with the increasing popularity of multicast and multimedia applications. In this paper, we propose a framework that performs both rate allocation and scheduling for unicast and multicast traffic in TDMA-based wireless mesh networks. The rate allocation algorithm is based on network utility maximization. The graph coloring-based scheduling algorithm achieves the allocated rates. Simulation results show that our framework provides guaranteed throughput and low delay for both multicast and unicast traffic. Furthermore, our framework significantly outperforms a previously published framework that has a similar objective.