Maximizing multicast call acceptance rate in multi-channel multi-interface wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we consider the problem of constructing bandwidth-guaranteed multicast tree in multi-channel multi-interface wireless mesh networks. We focus on the scenario of dynamic multicast call arrival, where each call has a specific bandwidth requirement. A call is accepted if a multicast tree with sufficient bandwidth on each link can be constructed. Intuitively, if the carried load on both the most-heavily loaded channel and the most-heavily loaded node is minimized, the traffic load in the network will be balanced. If the network load is balanced, more room will be available for accommodating future calls. This would maximize the call acceptance rate in the network. With the above notion of load balancing in mind, an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation is formulated for constructing bandwidth-guaranteed tree. We show that the above problem is NP-hard, and an efficient heuristic algorithm called Largest Coverage Shortest-Path First (LC-SPF) is devised. Simulation results show that LC-SPF yields comparable call acceptance rate as the ILP formulation, but with much shorter running time. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

The multi-state hard core model on a regular tree

The classical hard core model from statistical physics, with activity $\lambda > 0$ and capacity $C=1$, on a graph $G$, concerns a probability measure on the set ${\mathcal I}(G)$ of independent sets of $G$, with the measure of each independent set $I \in {\mathcal I}(G)$ being proportional to $\lambda^{|I|}$. Ramanan et al. proposed a generalization of the hard core model as an idealized model of multicasting in communication networks. In this generalization, the {\em multi-state} hard core model, the capacity $C$ is allowed to be a positive integer, and a configuration in the model is an assignment of states from $\{0,\ldots,C\}$ to $V(G)$ (the set of nodes of $G$) subject to the constraint that the states of adjacent nodes may not sum to more than $C$. The activity associated to state $i$ is $\lambda^{i}$, so that the probability of a configuration $\sigma:V(G)\rightarrow \{0,\ldots, C\}$ is proportional to $\lambda^{\sum_{v \in V(G)} \sigma(v)}$. In this work, we consider this generalization when $G$ is an infinite rooted $b$-ary tree and prove rigorously some of the conjectures made by Ramanan et al. In particular, we show that the $C=2$ model exhibits a (first-order) phase transition at a larger value of $\lambda$ than the $C=1$ model exhibits its (second-order) phase transition. In addition, for large $b$ we identify a short interval of values for $\lambda$ above which the model exhibits phase co-existence and below which there is phase uniqueness. For odd $C$, this transition occurs in the region of \lambda = (e/b)^{1/\ceil{C/2}}, while for even $C$, it occurs around $\lambda=(\log b/b(C+2))^{2/(C+2)}$. In the latter case, the transition is first-order.Comment: Will appear in {\em SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics}, Special Issue on Constraint Satisfaction Problems and Message Passing Algorithm

Low Cost Quality of Service Multicast Routing in High Speed Networks

Many of the services envisaged for high speed networks, such as B-ISDN/ATM, will support real-time applications with large numbers of users. Examples of these types of application range from those used by closed groups, such as private video meetings or conferences, where all participants must be known to the sender, to applications used by open groups, such as video lectures, where partcipants need not be known by the sender. These types of application will require high volumes of network resources in addition to the real-time delay constraints on data delivery. For these reasons, several multicast routing heuristics have been proposed to support both interactive and distribution multimedia services, in high speed networks. The objective of such heuristics is to minimise the multicast tree cost while maintaining a real-time bound on delay. Previous evaluation work has compared the relative average performance of some of these heuristics and concludes that they are generally efficient, although some perform better for small multicast groups and others perform better for larger groups. Firstly, we present a detailed analysis and evaluation of some of these heuristics which illustrates that in some situations their average performance is reversed; a heuristic that in general produces efficient solutions for small multicasts may sometimes produce a more efficient solution for a particular large multicast, in a specific network. Also, in a limited number of cases using Dijkstra's algorithm produces the best result. We conclude that the efficiency of a heuristic solution depends on the topology of both the network and the multicast, and that it is difficult to predict. Because of this unpredictability we propose the integration of two heuristics with Dijkstra's shortest path tree algorithm to produce a hybrid that consistently generates efficient multicast solutions for all possible multicast groups in any network. These heuristics are based on Dijkstra's algorithm which maintains acceptable time complexity for the hybrid, and they rarely produce inefficient solutions for the same network/multicast. The resulting performance attained is generally good and in the rare worst cases is that of the shortest path tree. The performance of our hybrid is supported by our evaluation results. Secondly, we examine the stability of multicast trees where multicast group membership is dynamic. We conclude that, in general, the more efficient the solution of a heuristic is, the less stable the multicast tree will be as multicast group membership changes. For this reason, while the hybrid solution we propose might be suitable for use with closed user group multicasts, which are likely to be stable, we need a different approach for open user group multicasting, where group membership may be highly volatile. We propose an extension to an existing heuristic that ensures multicast tree stability where multicast group membership is dynamic. Although this extension decreases the efficiency of the heuristics solutions, its performance is significantly better than that of the worst case, a shortest path tree. Finally, we consider how we might apply the hybrid and the extended heuristic in current and future multicast routing protocols for the Internet and for ATM Networks.

STCP: Receiver-agnostic Communication Enabled by Space-Time Cloud Pointers

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Computer Engineering)During the last decade, mobile communication technologies have rapidly evolved and ubiquitous network connectivity is nearly achieved. However, we observe that there are critical situations where none of the existing mobile communication technologies is usable. Such situations are often found when messages need to be delivered to arbitrary persons or devices that are located in a specific space at a specific time. For instance at a disaster scene, current communication methods are incapable of delivering messages of a rescuer to the group of people at a specific area even when their cellular connections are alive because the rescuer cannot specify the receivers of the messages. We name this as receiver-unknown problem and propose a viable solution called SpaceMessaging. SpaceMessaging adopts the idea of Post-it by which we casually deliver our messages to a person who happens to visit a location at a random moment. To enable SpaceMessaging, we realize the concept of posting messages to a space by implementing cloud-pointers at a cloud server to which messages can be posted and from which messages can fetched by arbitrary mobile devices that are located at that space. Our Android-based prototype of SpaceMessaging, which particularly maps a cloud-pointer to a WiFi signal fingerprint captured from mobile devices, demonstrates that it first allows mobile devices to deliver messages to a specific space and to listen to the messages of a specific space in a highly accurate manner (with more than 90% of Recall)

A joint routing and scheduling algorithm for efficient broadcast in wireless mesh networks

With the increasing popularity of wireless mesh networks (WMNs), broadcasting traffic (e.g. IP-TV) will contribute a large portion of network load. In this paper, we consider a multi-channel multi-interface WMN with real time broadcast call arrivals. Aiming at maximizing the call acceptance rate of the network, an efficient broadcast tree construction algorithm, called Schedule-based Greedy Expansion (S-Expand), is designed. Unlike the existing time fraction approach, which focuses on assigning time fractions to tree links to guarantee the existence of a feasible schedule, we follow the approach of joint routing and scheduling. The proposed S-Expand algorithm packs non-interfering transmissions to use the same time slots; this would allow more flexibility in accepting future calls. Simulation results show that S-Expand achieves higher call acceptance rate than the traditional time fraction approach. ©2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 2010 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), Sydney, Australia, 18-21 April 2010. In Proceedings of WCNC, 2010, p. 1-

Minimal contention-free matrices with application to multicasting

In this paper, we show that the multicast problem in trees can be expressed in term of arranging rows and columns of boolean matrices. Given a $p \times q$ matrix $M$ with 0-1 entries, the {\em shadow} of $M$ is defined as a boolean vector $x$ of $q$ entries such that $x_i=0$ if and only if there is no 1-entry in the $i$th column of $M$, and $x_i=1$ otherwise. (The shadow $x$ can also be seen as the binary expression of the integer $x=\sum_{i=1}^{q}x_i 2^{q-i}$. Similarly, every row of $M$ can be seen as the binary expression of an integer.) According to this formalism, the key for solving a multicast problem in trees is shown to be the following. Given a $p \times q$ matrix $M$ with 0-1 entries, finding a matrix $M^*$ such that: 1- $M^*$ has at most one 1-entry per column; 2- every row $r$ of $M^*$ (viewed as the binary expression of an integer) is larger than the corresponding row $r$ of $M$, $1 \leq r \leq p$; and 3- the shadow of $M^*$ (viewed as an integer) is minimum. We show that there is an $O(q(p+q))$ algorithm that returns $M^*$ for any $p \times q$ boolean matrix $M$. The application of this result is the following: Given a {\em directed} tree $T$ whose arcs are oriented from the root toward the leaves, and a subset of nodes $D$, there exists a polynomial-time algorithm that computes an optimal multicast protocol from the root to all nodes of $D$ in the all-port line model.Peer Reviewe