A Novel Distributed Scheduling Algorithm for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless multi-hop, mesh networks are being considered as a candidate to backhaul data traffic from access networks to the wired Internet. These mesh networks are referred to as wireless backhaul networks. Existing medium access control (MAC) protocols and scheduling algorithms are devised for wireless access. So although they have been adopted for the wireless backhaul networks, they do not yield good performance. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed scheduling algorithm, composed of a framework and a new utility function definition, for wireless backhaul networks. We show by analysis and simulation that in a long run the algorithm converges to the desired throughput allocation, which can be specified by the routing protocol in use to guarantee quality of service. Moreover, in terms of interference, we show that our framework maintains strong temporal correlation of interference, which is required to ensure proper channel predictions for scheduling gain and for distributed power control. Finally, simulation results reveal that the new algorithm takes advantage of the multi-user diversity in achieving high overall network throughput, when compared with the tree-structure algorithm.