Minimizing intra-flow interference in multi-channel mesh networks: An optimization approach
Roman Seibel, Somayeh Taheri, Keyu Wang, Dieter Hogrefe · 2016
The performance of wireless multi-hop mesh networks is negatively affected by interference between neighboring links which use the same channel. Even if no interflow interference exists, intra-flow interference still degrades network performance to a high degree. To overcome this problem this paper presents a routing protocol for wireless multi-hop networks with multiple radio interfaces, which minimizes intra-flow interference with significant performance improvement. Our protocol reduces the problem of intra-flow interference to a channel combination problem by collecting route records along a path. The challenge of channel selection belongs to classical graph labeling, specifically sequence labeling, which we solve efficiently with the Viterbi algorithm on a second order Markov chain and a efficient Greedy approximation algorithm for the solution. We show that our route record based distance vector protocol can exploit channel diversity better than classic distance vector protocols. We provide theoretical and numerical analysis of the problem and solution, complemented by empirical evidence from extensive simulation. We report substantial improvement in network performance measured in throughput and packet delivery fraction, without additional routing overhead.