An efficient DoF scheduling algorithm for multi-hop MIMO networks

Degree-of-Freedom (DoF)-based model is a simple yet powerful tool to analyze MIMO´s spatial multiplexing (SM) and interference cancellation (IC) capabilities in a multi-hop network. Recently, a new DoF model was proposed and was shown to achieve the same rate region as the matrix-based model (under SM and IC). The essence of this new DoF model is a novel node ordering concept, which eliminates potential duplication of DoF allocation for IC. In this paper, we investigate DoF scheduling for a multi-hop MIMO network based on this new DoF model. Specifically, we study how to perform DoF allocation among the nodes for SM and IC so as to maximize the minimum rate among a set of sessions. We formulate this problem as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and develop an efficient DoF scheduling algorithm to solve it. We show that our algorithm is amenable to local implementation and has polynomial time complexity. More importantly, it guarantees the feasibility of final solution (upon algorithm termination), despite that node ordering establishment and adjustment are performed locally. Simulation results show that our algorithm can offer a result that is close to an upper bound found by CPLEX solver, thus showing that the result found by our algorithm is highly competitive.