On joint optimization of link rate assignment and transmission scheduling in wireless mesh networks
Yuan Li, Michał Pióro, Di Yuan, Jinshu Su · 2012
We consider an optimization problem of joint link rate assignment and transmission scheduling in wireless mesh networks. We assume that each radio link uses (when active) one selected link-dependent modulation and coding scheme. For finding an exact optimum, the problem requires a complicated branch-and-price algorithm that becomes excessively time consuming for networks of practical size. Therefore, we introduce an original simulated annealing-based heuristic - the main novelty and purpose of the paper. The heuristic utilizes intrinsic problem characteristics and proves to work efficiently in practice, resolving the trade-off between sub-optimality of the obtained solutions and the running time. Moreover, the heuristic can be effectively used as a lower bound in the branch-and-price process, improving its efficiency. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by means of a numerical study.