Intra- and inter-cluster link scheduling in CUPS-based ad hoc networks

Abstract

While control and user (data) plane separation (CUPS) through clustering improves the scalability of ad hoc networks in comparison to flat topologies, it introduces additional challenges for resource scheduling when contention-free medium access is employed. This paper addresses intra- and inter-cluster link scheduling problem in multi-channel ad hoc networks employing CUPS architecture. We first describe the CUPS architecture. Then, we present a novel intra- and inter-cluster link scheduling mechanism over the CUPS architecture. We propose a link scheduling strategy that is responsive to instant communication demands and available resources as a non-linear optimization problem, which is then reduced to a linear form by eliminating non-linearities in order to simplify the problem definition and enhance optimizer performance. The results of the optimizer show that the run time cost of the optimization function drastically increases by the parameter size growth. Therefore, we propose an iterative solution to decrease the running time. The adaptation of the iterative history-based approach makes the solution feasible and ensures near-optimal satisfaction and efficiency.