High-Priority Minimum-Interference Channel Assignment in Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Networks

Abstract

Wireless network nodes equipping multi-radio interfaces on each node and using multi-channel for transmission can greatly enhance the network performance. In this paper, we study the channel assignment problem in the multi-radio multi-channel wireless networks that involves assigning channels to radio interfaces for increasing the throughput of the networks. We propose a channel assignment algorithm which first establishes priorities for nodes, and assigns channels to links according to the priority of links on the same node, called HPMI (High-Priority Minimum-Interference). And the algorithm can connect nodes within each other's communication range with minimal interference. In addition, we developed a method to determine the performance of channel assignment algorithms, in which CSMA/CA is used to avoid the competition of co-channel, and proved that HPMI can provide large reduction in interference and lead to significant gains in throughput.