A novel path selection formulation for The IEEE 802.16j Multi-hop Relay networks

In the IEEE 802.16j Mobile Multi-hop Relay (MMR) network, a mobile station (MS) can communicate with multi-hop relay base station (MR-BS) via the relay station (RS), which is developed in the networks to expand the system coverage, increase user throughput and capacity of the system. When the transmission link between MR-BS and MS is not good, an RS is applied to transmit data. It also communicates with the other RSs in the network via MMR path. When an MS enters to the MMR network, several paths between MS and MR-BS can be found. The RS implements an important responsibility of processes to find the neighbor station, select access station, and create a path selection. The design of an effective path selection scheme in the network is an important issue for the throughput enhancement, signaling overhead reduction, and the latency minimization. In this paper, we propose a new path selection method for the IEEE 802.16j MR network. We focus on the path selection method in the IEEE 802.16j using non-transparent and fixed RS. The method is presented considering on MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme) link adaptation, free available slots and a useful measurement called the resource-effectiveness-ratio (RER) to indicate both the maximum throughput and minimum path costs used to transmit data. An optimal path can be selected and demonstrate the performance improvement with numerical results.