Providing protection in multi-hop wireless networks

We consider the problem of providing protection against failures in wireless networks subject to interference constraints. Typically, protection in wired networks is provided through the provisioning of backup paths. This approach has not been previously considered in the wireless setting due to the prohibitive cost of backup capacity. However, we show that in the presence of interference, protection can often be provided with no loss in throughput. This is due to the fact that after a failure, links that previously interfered with the failed link can be activated, thus leading to a “recapturing” of some of the lost capacity. We provide both an ILP formulation for the optimal solution, as well as algorithms that perform close to optimal. More importantly, we show that providing protection in a wireless network uses as much as 72% less protection resources as compared to similar protection schemes designed for wired networks, and that in many cases, no additional resources for protection are needed.