Transmission scheduling for wireless mesh network systems equipped with multiple directional antennas

All existing broadcast scheduling algorithms (BSAs) were designed for omnidirectional antenna (OA) packet radio (PR) nodes of a wireless mesh network (WMN). However, when WMN nodes are equipped with multiple directional antennas (DAs), a signal sent from a neighboring node may be received by more than one DA of the receiving node, and some nodes may receive signals from multiple DAs sent from the same node. When existing OA BSAs are used for scheduling transmission time-slots in time division multiple access (TDMA), due to the multiple DA signal detection phenomenon a weak performance in average time delay and channel utilization is obtained. Therefore, a novel transmission scheduling algorithm (TSA) for WMN nodes equipped with multiple DAs is proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that a significant performance gain can be obtained from using the proposed DA-TSA scheme.     

A multiple relay‐based medium access control protocol in multirate wireless ad hoc networks with multiple beam antennas

The advanced technique of multiple beam antennas is recently considered in wireless networks to improve the system throughput by increasing spatial reuse, reducing collisions, and avoiding co‐channel interference. The usage of multiple beam antennas is similar to the concept of Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA), while each beam can be treated as a data channel. Wireless networks can increase the total throughput and decrease the transmission latency if the physical layer of a mobile node can support multirate capability. Multirate wireless networks incurs the anomaly problem, because low data rate hosts may influence the original performance of high data rate hosts. In this work, each node fits out multiple beam antennas with multirate capability, and a node can either simultaneously transmit or receive multiple data on multiple beams. Observe that the transmitting or receiving operation does not happen at the same time. In this paper, we propose a multiple relay‐based medium access control (MAC) protocol to improve the throughput for low data rate hosts. Our MAC protocol exploits multiple relay nodes and helps the source and the destination to create more than one data channel to significantly reduce the transmission latency. Observe that low data rate links with long‐distance transmission latencies are distributed by multiple relay nodes, hence the anomaly problem can be significantly alleviated. In addition, the ACK synchronization problem is solved to avoid the condition that source nodes do not receive ACKs from destination nodes. An adjustment operation is presented to reduce unnecessary relay nodes during the fragment burst period. Finally, simulation results illustrate that our multiple relay‐based MAC protocol can achieve high throughput and low transmission latency. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Topology control for multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh networks using directional antennas

Directional antennas are widely used technologies for reducing signal interference and increasing spatial reuse. In this paper, we propose a topology control method for multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh networks that use directional antennas. We are given a set of mesh routers installed in a region and some of them are gateway nodes that are connected to the Internet via wired lines. Each router has a traffic demand (Internet access traffic) generated from the end-users. The problem is how to adjust antenna orientations of radios and assign channels to them to construct a logical network topology, such that the minimum delivery ratio of traffic demands of routers is maximized. We first formulate the problem to an equivalent optimization problem with a clearer measurable metric, which is to minimize the largest interfering traffic of links in the network. We then propose a three-step solution to solve the problem. Firstly, we construct a set of routing trees, with the objective to balance the traffic among tree links. Secondly, we assign the radios of a node to the links it needs to serve, such that the total traffic load of the links that each radio serves is as balanced as possible. Thirdly, we do a fine-grained adjustment of antenna orientations and assign channels to them, such that the transmission area of each antenna will cover all the links it serves and the largest interfering traffic of links is minimized.     

基于定向天线的移动自组网路由协议研究

同等功耗下,定向天线能够产生更高的增益,提供更大的传输范围,提高网络的空间复用度和吞吐量,天线选择的方向性又降低了邻近结点之间的相互干扰,采用定向天线能够给移动自组网带来潜在性能的提高。对基于定向天线的移动自组网路由协议进行研究,简单介绍了定向天线,总结了引入定向天线产生的路由问题,对现有的一些典型定向路由协议进行了分类、介绍和比较,最后对引入定向天线带来的好处进行了分析。     

Measurement‐based link scheduling for maritime mesh networks with directional antennas

The proliferation of wireless transceivers and the availability of the unlicensed band has given a boost to the deployment of wireless networks, with IEEE802.11/WiFi being the major driver in this arena. In this research, we consider a wireless mesh network designed for long‐distance communication with a typical deployment scenario of a maritime mesh network. This network uses an antenna system made up of multiple fixed‐beamwidth antennas. Compared to most other directional antenna schemes which use directional antenna for transmission and omni‐directional antenna for reception, our system uses directional antennas for both transmission and reception where a pair of transmitter–receiver antennas needs to be aligned and have an acceptable channel quality before transmission can take place. Through efficient use of directional antennas for both transmission and reception, and spatial reuse in transmission, we are able to realize a high‐capacity mesh network. In this paper, we present a practical approach to achieve contention‐free medium access, namely, a measurement‐based link‐scheduling algorithm. We evaluate the performance of the link‐scheduling algorithm using simulations and show that it is able to exploit the spatial diversity provided by the directional antennas to outperform comparable schemes for wireless mesh networks. We also briefly discuss implementation issues to demonstrate the viability of the approach. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation and analysis of node throughput using smart antenna in wireless mesh networks

Smart antenna technology is introduced to wireless mesh networks. Smart antennas based wider-range access medium access control (MAC) protocol (SWAMP) is used as MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11 mesh networks in this study. The calculation method of node throughput in chain and arbitrary topology is proposed under nodes fairness guarantee. Network scale and interference among nodes are key factors that influence node throughput. Node distribution pattern near the gateway also affects the node throughput. Experiment based on network simulator-2 (NS-2) simulation platform compares node throughput between smart antenna scenario and omni-antenna scenario. As smart antenna technology reduces the bottle collision domain, node throughput increases observably.     

Asymptotic Connectivity in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Using Directional Antennas

Connectivity is a crucial issue in wireless ad hoc networks (WANETs). Gupta and Kumar have shown that in WANETs using omnidirectional antennas, the critical transmission range to achieve asymptotic connectivity is $O(sqrt{log n/n})$ if $n$ nodes are uniformly and independently distributed in a disk of unit area. In this paper, we investigate the connectivity problem when directional antennas are used. We first assume that each node in the network randomly beamforms in one beam direction. We find that there also exists a critical transmission range for a WANET to achieve asymptotic connectivity, which corresponds to a critical transmission power (CTP). Since CTP is dependent on the directional antenna pattern, the number of beams, and the propagation environment, we then formulate a non-linear programming problem to minimize the CTP. We show that when directional antennas use the optimal antenna pattern, the CTP in a WANET using directional antennas at both transmitter and receiver is smaller than that when either transmitter or receiver uses directional antenna and is further smaller than that when only omnidirectional antennas are used. Moreover, we revisit the connectivity problem assuming that two neighboring nodes using directional antennas can be guaranteed to beamform to each other to carry out the transmission. A smaller critical transmission range than that in the previous case is found, which implies smaller CTP.      

Angular MAC: a framework for directional antennas in wireless mesh networks

Capacity of wireless mesh networks can be enhanced through the use of smart directional antennas, which not only enable nodes to have high quality links but also increase network throughput by allowing spatial reuse. This paper proposes a new MAC protocol and framework, called Angular MAC (ANMAC) that enables directional antennas in wireless mesh networks. The protocols and algorithms of the ANMAC framework fit well with the requirements of mesh networks such as neighbor discovery and self-configuration, while providing significant throughput enhancements. The throughput enhancements are proven by comprehensive simulations with realistic antenna patterns, including performance comparisons of ANMAC with directional schemes using a similar node architecture and omni 802.11. Also, the effect of contention window size is analyzed and a dynamic contention window adaptation algorithm is proposed to maximize the throughput of the self-configuring mesh network, by taking instantaneous traffic conditions into account.     

Achieving maximum flow in interference-aware wireless sensor networks with smart antennas

Directional antenna offers various benefits for wireless sensor networks, such as increased spatial reuse ratio and reduced energy consumption. In this paper, we formulate the maximum flow problem as an optimization problem in interference-limited wireless sensor networks with switched beam directional antennas. The optimization problem is solvable in the presence of an omniscient controller, but it is NP-hard. Therefore, we seek a distributed algorithm to achieve the maximum flow through jointly routing and scheduling. The maximum flow between given source destination pair is determined forwardly hop by hop and is verified by the proposed feasible condition at downstream nodes. This method works for both single-beam antenna and multi-beam antenna with some variation in the feasibility condition.     

Performance analysis of slotted ALOHA and network coding for single-relay multi-user wireless networks

Deployment of wireless relay nodes can enhance system capacity, extend wireless service coverage, and reduce energy consumption in wireless networks. Network coding enables us to mix two or more packets into a single coded packet at relay nodes and improve performances in wireless relay networks. In this paper, we succeed in developing analytical models of the throughput and delay on slotted ALOHA (S-ALOHA) and S-ALOHA with network coding (S-ALOHA/NC) for single-relay multi-user wireless networks with bidirectional data flows. The analytical models involve effects of queue saturation and unsaturation at the relay node. The throughput and delay for each user node can be extracted from the total throughput and delay by using the analytical models. One can formulate various optimization problems on traffic control in order to maximize the throughput, minimize the delay, or achieve fairness of the throughput or the delay. In particular, we clarify that the total throughput is enhanced in the S-ALOHA/NC protocol on condition that the transmission probability at the relay node is set at the value on the boundary between queue saturation and unsaturation. Our analysis provides achievable regions in throughput on two directional data flows at the relay node for both the S-ALOHA and S-ALOHA/NC protocols. As a result, we show that the achievable region in throughput can be enhanced by using network coding and traffic control.     

Power-aware ad hoc networks with directional antennas: Models and analysis

Directional antennas offer numerous benefits for wireless ad hoc networks, such as extended communication range, better spatial reuse, improved capacity and suppressed interference. In this work, we study analytically the benefits of transmission power control on throughput and energy consumption in a uniformly distributed power-aware ad hoc network where nodes are equipped with directional antennas. We construct an interference model for directional antenna based on a honey grid model to calculate the maximum interference. We further derive a directional collision avoidance model and based on the integrated interference/collision model and signal to interference requirements (SIR), we present the maximum end-to-end throughput under the maximum interference. We further investigate the effect of collision on the energy consumption and propose an energy consumption model that utilizes all aspects of energy wastage.     

Efficient Beamforming by SLNR Maximization for Dual-Hop Relay Assisted MIMO Network

Relay beamforming is a key signal processing technique to mitigate interference in single and multiuser multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) wireless communication networks. In MIMO relay networks interference cancellation is an essential task of the study to get optimal network capacity. In this paper, the problem of interference resulted from leakage signal from desired signal for intended antenna, which causing interference to other antennas of the same user with multiple antennas is tackled. The criterion of signal to leakage plus noise ratio (SLNR) maximization is considered to design a vector by vector relay downlink precoding based on Fukunaga Koontz transform. This can control the interference among multiple antennas and maximize SLNR. However, matched filter beamforming is utilized at the relay receiving side that can increase output signal to noise ratio at the relay node. The channel state information of both the channel between source to relay and relay to destination is assumed at the relay node. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is studied and compared with conventional relay precoding techniques. Simulation is carried out in MATLAB environment using ideal channel conditions. This study demonstrates that, the proposed scheme for relay assisted MIMO networks can improve overall system performance in terms of ergodic capacity.     

On the capacity of the single source multiple relay single destination mesh network

In this paper, we derive the information theoretic capacity of a special class of mesh networks. A mesh network is a heterogeneous wireless network in which the transmission among power limited nodes is assisted by powerful relays, which use the same wireless medium. We investigate the mesh network when there is one source, one destination, and multiple relays, which we call the single source multiple relay single destination (SSMRSD) mesh network. We derive the asymptotic capacity of the SSMRSD mesh network when the relay powers grow to infinity. Our approach is as follows. We first look at an upper bound on the information theoretic capacity of these networks in a Gaussian setting. We then show that this bound is achievable asymptotically using the compress-and-forward strategy for the multiple relay channel. We also perform numerical computations for the case when the relays have finite powers. We observe that even when the relay power is only a few times larger than the source power, the compress-and-forward rate gets close to the capacity. The results indicate the value of cooperation in wireless mesh networks. The capacity characterization quantifies how the relays can cooperate, using the compress-and-forward strategy, to either conserve node energy or to increase transmission rate.     

An adaptive load-aware routing algorithm for multi-interface wireless mesh networks

In wireless mesh networks, the number of gateway nodes are limited, when the nodes access to the internet by fixed gateway node, different requirements of nodes lead to the dataflow shows heterogeneity. Many new routing metrics and algorithms existing in traditional wired networks and the Ad Hoc network, can not be directly applied to wireless mesh networks, so how to design a routing metric and algorithm which can dynamically adapt to current networks topology and dataflow changes, avoid bottleneck node, and select the most stable and least congestion link to establish a route is very important. In this paper, we presented a new dynamic adaptive channel load-aware metric (LAM) to solve the link load imbalance caused by inter-flow and inner-flow interference, designed a self-adaptive dynamic load balancing on-demand routing algorithm through extending and improving AODV routing method with the LAM, to achieve flow balance, reduce the high packet loss ratio and latency because congestion and Packet retransmission, and can increase Network Throughput.     

Call admission control for wireless mesh network based on power interference modeling using directional antenna

Interference is a fundamental issue in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) and it seriously affects the network performance. In this paper we characterize the power interference in IEEE 802.11 CSMA/CA based wireless mesh networks using directional antennas. A model based centralized call admission control (CAC) scheme is proposed which uses physical collision constraints, and transmitter-side, receiver-side and when-idle protocol collision prevention constraints. The CAC assists to manage requests from users depending on the available bandwidth in the network: when a new virtual link establishment request from a user is accepted into the network, resources such as interface, bandwidth, transmission power and channel are allocated in the participating nodes and released once the session is completed. The proposed CAC is also able to contain the interference in the WMN by managing the transmission power of nodes.     

Network-coding-based scheduling and routing schemes for service-oriented wireless mesh networks - [Service-oriented broadband wireless network architecture]

Service-oriented wireless mesh networks have recently been receiving intensive attention as a pivotal component to implement the concept of ubiquitous computing due to their easy and cost-effective deployment. To deliver a variety of services to subscriber stations, a large volume of traffic is exchanged via mesh routers in the mesh backbone network. One of the critical problems in service-oriented wireless mesh networks is to improve the network throughput. Wireless network coding is a key technology to improve network throughput in multihop wireless networks since it can exploit not only the broadcast nature of the wireless channel, but also the native physical-layer coding ability by mixing simultaneously arriving radio waves at relay nodes. We first analyze the throughput improvement obtained by wireless network coding schemes in wireless mesh networks. Then we develop a heuristic joint link scheduling, channel assignment, and routing algorithm that can improve the network throughput for service-oriented wireless mesh networks. Our extensive simulations show that wireless network coding schemes can improve network throughput by 34 percent.     

一种无线Mesh网络中基于协同通信的多包接收方法

协同通信容许移动节点共享彼此的天线以构建虚拟多入多出系统,可有效获得空间分集增益。为利用虚拟多入多出信道的分集增益,该文提出了一种在无线Mesh网络上行链路中采用协同策略的多包接收方法。该方法中提出由发生冲突的Mesh终端及其协同节点构建虚拟多入多出信道,且多天线Mesh路由器通过串行干扰消除算法来快速分离冲突包。理论分析和仿真结果表明该方法可充分利用空间资源,相比NDMA和TDMA可有效提高系统的有效吞吐量并降低时延。     

Power efficient routing trees for ad hoc wireless networks using directional antenna

In ad hoc wireless networks, nodes are typically powered by batteries. Therefore saving energy has become a very important objective, and different algorithms have been proposed to achieve power efficiency during the routing process. Directional antenna has been used to further decrease transmission energy as well as to reduce interference. In this paper, we discuss five algorithms for routing tree construction that take advantage of directional antenna, i.e., Reverse-Cone-Pairwise (RCP), Simple-Linear (SL), Linear-Insertion (LI), Linear-Insertion-Pairwise (LIP), and a traditional approximation algorithm for the travelling salesman problem (TSP). Their performances are compared through a simulation study.     

无线网络中基于位置的能量高效协作路由算法

为了降低无线网络中路由的整体发射功率,该文提出了一种基于位置的能量高效协作路由(LBCR)算法。首先分析了协作链路在一定中断概率要求下的发射功率性能,理论分析表明,合适的协作节点可以降低协作链路的发射功率。在自适应转发分群路由(AFCR)算法的基础上,LBCR算法利用节点位置信息为每跳选择合适的中继节点,然后结合多跳协作策略,建立从源节点到目的节点的协作路由。仿真结果表明,与无协作的AFCR算法和基于一跳协作的MPCR算法相比,LBCR算法可以明显改善路由的整体发射功率。     

射频能量采集非可信中继网络中物理层安全传输

射频能量采集技术为能量受限无线通信系统提供了一种有效的能量供给方式.假设能量受限中继节点具有射频能量采集能力,本文设计了中继非可信情况下的物理层安全传输方案,配置多天线的源节点采用发送天线选择策略来增强中继节点的能量采集性能,目的节点发送人工干扰来抑制非可信中继对保密信息的窃听.在瑞利块衰落信道条件下研究了所提方案的物理层安全性能,推导了系统安全中断概率、连接中断概率和安全吞吐量的闭式表达式.计算机仿真验证了理论推导的正确性,揭示了各系统参数对物理层安全性能的影响关系.