Cost optimization through differential radio placement in multi-radio wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh network (WMN) has drawn much attention as a cost-effective way of providing wireless Internet service in wide area. The optimization problems have been an issue in wireless mesh network. In the previous studies, optimal locations of gateways are determined so that deployment cost is minimized while satisfying the required network performance. However, it is noted that the number of radios to be equipped in a mesh router has not been considered in the previous studies. In this paper, we consider the wireless mesh network where mesh routers can equip multiple radio interfaces. For a regular hexagonal cluster, the system cost is minimized by differential radio placement. we formulate optimization problem using mixed integer programming (MIP), and obtain numerical results using CPLEX. It is verified through numerical analysis that differential radio placement can achieve substantial cost reduction in multi-radio wireless mesh network.