Capacity and interference aware link scheduling with channel assignment in wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are receiving lot of attention in recent years due to the unique features such as low cost and easy deployment. The optimal routing in these networks depends on the link capacities determined by link scheduling. To increase the throughput and network capacity, use of multiple channels and interfaces has been introduced in these networks. But the presence of interference limits the use of link and channel assignment in these types of networks. In this paper, we present a novel approach for link scheduling and channel assignment (CA) to improve the overall capacity and throughput of WMNs. The problem of link scheduling and CA is formulated as a Linear Programming (LP) problem with associated constraints. Links are sorted and placed in a particular group based upon link cost metric (LCM). The LCM value is used to group the links together and placed in appropriate group for CA. As the links are sorted and placed in appropriate groups the corresponding entries are made in Link Assignment Matrix (LAM). once the links are grouped using LCM, then CA for these links is done and corresponding entries are made in Channel Assignment Matrix (CAM). Two algorithms, one for link scheduling and other for CA, are proposed. Simulation results show that proposed scheme outperforms the earlier approaches with respect to packet delivery fraction, end-to-end delay, aggregate throughput, fairness index and packet loss rate. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.