High-Performance Broadcast and Multicast Protocols for Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks

Recently, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have attracted much attention. A vast amount of unicast, multicast and broadcast protocols has been developed for WMNs or mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). First of all, broadcast and multicast in wireless networks are fundamentally different from the way in which wired networks function due to the well-known wireless broadcast/multicast advantage. Moreover, most broadcast and multicast protocols in wireless networks assume a single-radio single-channel and single-rate network model, or a generalized physical model, which does not take into account the impact of interference. This dissertation focuses on high-performance broadcast and multicast protocols designed for multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) WMNs. MRMC increases the capacity of the network from different aspects. Multi-radio allows mesh nodes to simultaneously send and receive through different radios to its neighbors. Multi-channel allows channels to be reused across the network, which expands the available spectrum and reduces the interference. Unlike MANETs, WMNs are assumed to be static or with minimal mobility. Therefore, the main design goal in WMNs is to achieve high throughput rather than to maintain connectivity. The capacity of WMNs is constrained by the interference caused by the neighbor nodes. One direct design objective is to minimize or reduce the interference in broadcast and multicast. This dissertation presents a set of broadcast and multicast protocols and mathematical formulations to achieve the design goal in MRMC WMNs. First, the broadcast problem is addressed with full consideration of both inter-node and intra-node interference to achieve efficient broadcast. The interference-aware broadcast protocol simultaneously achieves full reliability, minimum broadcast or multicast latency, minimum redundant transmissions, and high throughput. With an MRMC WMN model, new link and channel quality metrics are defined and are suitable for the design of broadcast and multicast protocols. Second, the minimum cost broadcast problem (MCBP), or minimum number of transmissions problem, is studied for MRMC WMNs. Minimum cost broadcast potentially allows more effective and efficient schedule algorithms to be designed. The proposed protocol with joint consideration of channel assignment reduces the interference to improve the throughput in the MCBP. Minimum cost broadcast in MRMC WMNs is very different from that in the single radio single channel scenario. The channel assignment in MRMC WMNs is used to assign multiple radios of every node to different channels. It determines the actual network connectivity since adjacent nodes have to be assigned to a common channel. Transmission on different channels makes different groups of neighboring nodes, and leads to different interference. Moreover, the selection of channels by the forward nodes impacts on the number of radios needed for broadcasting. Finally, the interference optimization multicast problem in WMNs with directional antennas is discussed. Directional transmissions can greatly reduce radio interference and increase spatial reuse. The interference with directional transmissions is defined for multicast algorithm design. Multicast routing found by the interference-aware algorithm tends to have fewer channel collisions. The research work presented in this dissertation concludes that (1) new and practical link and channel metrics are required for designing broadcast and multicast in MRMC WMNs; (2) a small number of radios is sufficient to significantly improve throughput of broadcast and multicast in WMNs; (3) the number of channels has more impact on almost all performance metrics, such as the throughput, the number of transmission, and interference, in WMNs

Protocol design and optimization for QoS provisioning in wireless mesh networks

Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) has been recognized as a promising step towards the goal of ubiquitous broadband wireless Internet access. By exploiting the state-of-the-art radio and multi-hop networking technologies, mesh nodes in WMN collaboratively form a stationary wireless communication backbone. Data between clients and the Internet is routed through a series of mesh nodes via one or multiple paths. Such a mesh structure enables WMN to provide clients high-speed Internet access services with a less expensive and easier-to-deployment wireless infrastructure comparing to the wired counterparts. Due to the unique characteristics of WMN, existing protocols and schemes designed for other wellstudied wireless networks, such as Wi-Fi and Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET), are not suitable for WMN and hence cannot be applied to WMN directly. Therefore, novel protocols specifically designed and optimized forWMNare highly desired to fully exploit the mesh architecture. The goal is to provide high-level Quality-of-Service (QoS) to WMN clients to enable a rich portfolio of wireless and mobile applications and scenarios. This dissertation investigates the following important issues related to QoS provisioning in WMN: high throughput routing between WMN clients and the Internet, fairness provisioning among WMN clients and network-level capacity optimization. We propose innovative solutions to address these issues and improve the performance, scalability and reliability of WMN. In addition, we develop CyMesh, a multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) wireless mesh network testbed, to evaluate the capacity and performance of WMN in real world environments. Extensive simulation (using the QualNet simulator) and experimental (over the CyMesh testbed) results demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed protocols. In particular, we learn that the system capacity of WMN can be improved significantly by exploiting the MRMC network architecture and the antenna directionality of radios equipped on mesh nodes, and our proposed fulfillment based fairness is a reasonable notion for fair service provisioning among WMN clients. Moreover, we report the encountered problems, key observations and learned lessons during the design and deployment of CyMesh, which may serve as a valuable resource for future MRMC WMN implementations

On Capacity and Delay of Multi-channel Wireless Networks with Infrastructure Support

In this paper, we propose a novel multi-channel network with infrastructure support, called an MC-IS network, which has not been studied in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study such an MC-IS network. Our proposed MC-IS network has a number of advantages over three existing conventional networks, namely a single-channel wireless ad hoc network (called an SC-AH network), a multi-channel wireless ad hoc network (called an MC-AH network) and a single-channel network with infrastructure support (called an SC-IS network). In particular, the network capacity of our proposed MC-IS network is $\sqrt{n \log n}$ times higher than that of an SC-AH network and an MC-AH network and the same as that of an SC-IS network, where $n$ is the number of nodes in the network. The average delay of our MC-IS network is $\sqrt{\log n/n}$ times lower than that of an SC-AH network and an MC-AH network, and $\min\{C_I,m\}$ times lower than the average delay of an SC-IS network, where $C_I$ and $m$ denote the number of channels dedicated for infrastructure communications and the number of interfaces mounted at each infrastructure node, respectively. Our analysis on an MC-IS network equipped with omni-directional antennas only has been extended to an MC-IS network equipped with directional antennas only, which are named as an MC-IS-DA network. We show that an MC-IS-DA network has an even lower delay of $\frac{c}{\lfloor \frac{2\pi}{\theta}\rfloor \cdot C_I}$ compared with an SC-IS network and our MC-IS network. For example, when $C_I=12$ and $\theta=\frac{\pi}{12}$, an MC-IS-DA network can further reduce the delay by 24 times lower that of an MC-IS network and reduce the delay by 288 times lower than that of an SC-IS network.Comment: accepted, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 201

Throughput optimization in MPR-capable multi-hop wireless networks

Recent advances in the physical layer have enabled the simultaneous reception of multiple packets by a node in wireless networks. This capability has the potential of improving the performance of multi-hop wireless networks by a logarithmic factor with respect to current technologies. However, to fully exploit multiple packet reception (MPR) capability, new routing and scheduling schemes must be designed. These schemes need to reformulate a historically underlying assumption in wireless networks which states that any concurrent transmission of two or more packets results in a collision and failure of all packet receptions. In this work, we present a generalized model for the throughput optimization problem in MPR-capable multi-hop wireless networks. The formulation incorporates not only the MPR protocol model to quantify interference, but also the multi-access channel. The former is related with the MAC and routing layers, and considers a packet as the unit of transmission. The latter accounts for the achievable capacity of links used by simultaneous packet transmissions. The problem is modeled as a joint routing and scheduling problem. The scheduling subproblem deals with finding the optimal schedulable sets, which are defined as subsets of links that can be scheduled or activated simultaneously. Among other results, we demonstrate that any solution of the scheduling subproblem can be built with |E| + 1 or fewer schedulable sets, where |E| is the number of links of the network. This result contrasts with a conjecture that states that a solution of the scheduling subproblem, in general, is composed of an exponential number of schedulable sets. The model can be applied to a wide range of networks, such as half and full duplex systems, networks with directional and omni-directional antennas with one or multiple transmit antennas per node. Due to the hardness of the problem, we propose several polynomial time schemes based on a combination of linear programming, approximation algorithm and greedy paradigms. We illustrate the use of the proposed schemes to study the impact of several design parameters such as decoding capability and number of transmit antennas on the performance of MPR-capable networks

Cross-layer schemes for performance optimization in wireless networks

Wireless networks are undergoing rapid progress and inspiring numerous applications. As the application of wireless networks becomes broader, they are expected to not only provide ubiquitous connectivity, but also support end users with certain service guarantees. End-to-end delay is an important Quality of Service (QoS) metric in multihop wireless networks. This dissertation addresses how to minimize end-to-end delay through joint optimization of network layer routing and link layer scheduling. Two cross-layer schemes, a loosely coupled cross-layer scheme and a tightly coupled cross-layer scheme, are proposed. The two cross-layer schemes involve interference modeling in multihop wireless networks with omnidirectional antenna. In addition, based on the interference model, multicast schedules are optimized to minimize the total end-to-end delay. Throughput is another important QoS metric in wireless networks. This dissertation addresses how to leverage the spatial multiplexing function of MIMO links to improve wireless network throughput. Wireless interference modeling of a half-duplex MIMO node is presented. Based on the interference model, routing, spatial multiplexing, and scheduling are jointly considered in one optimization model. The throughput optimization problem is first addressed in constant bit rate networks and then in variable bit rate networks. In a variable data rate network, transmitters can use adaptive coding and modulation schemes to change their data rates so that the data rates are supported by the Signal to Noise and Interference Ratio (SINR). The problem of achieving maximum throughput in a millimeter-wave wireless personal area network is studied --Abstract, page iv