An optimization framework for demand-based fair stream allocation in MIMO ad hoc networks

In this paper, we investigate the problem of scheduling flows for fair stream allocation in ad hoc networks utilizing multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver side known as Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technology. Our main contributions include: i) the concept of stream allocation to flows based on their traffic demands or class, ii) achieving the proportional fairness of the stream allocation in the minimum possible schedule length. We first formulate demand-based fair stream allocation as an integer linear programming (ILP) problem whose solution is a schedule that is guaranteed to be contention-free. We then solve this ILP in conjunction with binary search to find a minimum-length contention-free schedule that achieves the fairness goals. We also show that an implementation of our algorithm for a number of sample topologies in fact yields minimum length schedules that achieve the fairness goals.