Multi-Piconet Extension using a Bridge Selection Protocol with Distributed and Centralized Traffic Scheduling in Home Networks

This paper describes a framework for establishment of UWB multi-hop ad hoc networks to improve the efficiency of standard-based multi-hop extension by constructing child or neighbor piconets. Bridge devices (BDEVs) are selected from usual devices with one single network interface by a bridge selection protocol. BDEV is a member of each interconnected piconet. Then, BDEVs are used to build the multi-piconet networks. Each piconet associated with a BDEV follows the 802.15.3 standard. Furthermore, distributed and centralized scheduling schemes are proposed to improve the performance of the scatter ad hoc networks. The distributed schemes are simple and flexible. However, the centralized scheme could achieve better scheduling efficiency. Through simulations, the proposed BDEV scheduling schemes are shown to be effective to extend network coverage in UWB home networks.