Optimization of heterogeneous multi-radio multi-hop rural wireless network

This paper presents an planning optimization framework focusing on coverage and capacity for a multi-radio, multi-hop network which consists of heterogeneous WLAN access and backhaul radios. Using a representative rural site in Malaysia, various stages of optimization exercises are undertaken including: 1) Optimizing Multi-radio Access Router (MAR) location, 2) Optimizing wireless backhaul topology, 3) Optimizing access channel and 4) access radio transmit power; taking into consideration various requirements and constraints such as the number of MARs, house/user distribution, house/user capacity requirement, backhaul capacity and hop counts. The ultimate goal is to minimize resources required and provide optimum network coverage and capacity to satisfy user requirements. Results show that only 9 MARs are required to provision 95% coverage at 4.7Mbps per house in the selected rural area. By optimizing the channel, a further 1.5Mbps capacity improvement and 21% of total coverage improvement can be achieved.