Channel on demand: Optimal capacity for cooperative multi-channel multi-interface wireless mesh networks

Cooperative communication (CC) has been proposed recently as an effective way to mitigate channel impairments. It has been shown that cooperative communications have the potential to significantly increase the capacity of wireless mesh networks (WMNs). However, most of the works focus on single channel based WMNs. In this paper, we will demonstrate how the cooperative communication benefits multi-channel multiinterface WMNs. The two strategies, amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF), have been widely used in cooperative communication to enhance the network capacity. We propose a novel mathematical model called channel-on-demand (COD), which combines the two strategies, together with direct transmission (DT). COD investigates the maximum capacity to accumulate the network resources, and provides the optimal interface assignment for real-time flows in cooperative multichannel multi-interface wireless mesh networks (CM2WMNs). COD analyzes maximum capacity for each node with both unidirectional flows and bidirectional flows. Based on the analytical results of COD, we provide four rules to apply analytical results. We also evaluate the proposed algorithm and compare it with simulation results using NS-2. Through simulation results, we show the significant rate gains achieved in CM2WMNs.