Cooperation and Interference in Wireless Mesh Networks [chapter]

Yuanzhu Chen, Yong Wang
2009 Cooperative Wireless Communications  
A wireless mesh network is a multi-hop wireless network consisting of a large number of cooperative wireless nodes, which can be either stationary or mobile. The primary goal in wireless mesh networking is to achieve high system throughput in presence of numerous data traffic flows. However, because of the broadcasting nature of the wireless medium, the interference between simultaneous transmissions is a key factor affecting the throughput. Using all communication links simultaneously
more » ... does not guarantee high throughput of the entire network. This is because the interference between wireless links incurs unnecessary collisions and consequently retransmissions. Therefore, in order to achieve a certain level of throughput in mesh networks, the activities of these links should be arranged in a cooperative way such that a balance between interference and effective communication is attained. There have been significant research efforts to alleviate interference in wireless mesh networks and, thus, to improve the throughput. In this Chapter, we discuss existing work aiming at high throughput while simultaneously incurring minimal interference in such networks. And this is an intriguing interplay among a multitude of factors. Throughout the discussion, we focus on unicasts (one-to-one communications). We first review some of the most accepted communication and interference models in the research of multi-hop wireless networking. We then discuss the three most important approaches to minimizing interference to support multiple flows simultaneously, i.e. by routing, channel assignment, and scheduling. Afterwards, we lead the readers to the not-so-conventional approach of reducing interference by mobility. We conclude the chapter by speculating on the difficulties in modeling wireless mesh networks and the interplay of different aspects of interference avoidance.
doi:10.1201/9781420064704.ch19 fatcat:4stbzqw46vawzma36lzyrtpdru