Max-Min Fairness in 802.11 Mesh Networks

Author

Leith, Douglas J. ; Cao, Qizhi ; Subramanian, Vijay G.

Author_Institution

Hamilton Inst., NUI Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland

Volume

20

Issue

3

fYear

2012

fDate

6/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

756

Lastpage

769

Abstract

In this paper, we establish that the rate region of a large class of IEEE 802.11 mesh networks is log-convex, immediately allowing standard utility fairness methods to be generalized to this class of networks. This creates a solid theoretical underpinning for fairness analysis and resource allocation in this practically important class of networks. For the special case of max-min fairness, we use this new insight to obtain an almost complete characterization of the fair rate allocation and a remarkably simple, practically implementable method for achieving max-min fairness in 802.11 mesh networks.

Keywords

convex programming; minimax techniques; resource allocation; wireless LAN; wireless mesh networks; IEEE802.11 mesh networks; max-min fairness analysis; resource allocation; solid theoretical underpinning; standard utility fairness methods; Convex functions; IEEE 802.11 Standards; Mesh networks; Optimization; Resource management; Throughput; Wireless LAN; 802.11; TXOP; WLANs; decentralized algorithms; max-min fairness; mesh networks; utility fairness;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Networking, IEEE/ACM Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1063-6692

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNET.2011.2165850

Filename

6009216