Layered backpressure scheduling for delay reduction in ad hoc networks

Packet scheduling in wireless ad hoc networks is a fundamental problem for ad hoc networking. Backpressure scheduling is a solid and throughput optimal policy for such networks, but suffers from increased delays. In this article, we present an holistic approach to improve upon the delay problems of backpressure-type algorithms. We develop two scheduling policies, namely Voting-based and Layered backpressure routing which both are throughput optimal. We experimentally compare the proposed policies against all the delay-aware backpressure policies and conclude that Layered backpressure is a high performance policy compromising a little delay for robustness, low computational complexity and simplicity.