Novel Distributed Scheduling Algorithms for mmWave Mesh Networks

Abstract

This paper addresses throughput improvement in millimeter-wave (mmWave) mesh networks via two novel distributed scheduling algorithms. The first one uses packet aggregation and block acknowledgment (ACK) that were introduced in the IEEE Std 802.11e-2005 for WiFi. Specifically, a distributed time-division multiplexing scheduling algorithm, which targets increasing the network capacity via reserving as many contiguous slots as possible for each node, is proposed thus enabling packet aggregation. This algorithm achieves its goal when the operating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is significantly high. If that is not the case, the second proposed algorithm can be used. It is a distributed one that starts initially with a random feasible schedule determined cooperatively between nodes. The algorithm then tries to reach better feasible schedules via parallel and successive local searches without violating feasibility constraints. Extensive simulations show that the first algorithm improves the network throughput by almost [Formula: see text] compared to the well-known memory-guided directional medium access control (MDMAC) due to reducing the transmission overhead. The second proposed algorithm is shown to increase the number of reserved slots by about [Formula: see text] over MDMAC. Both algorithms are shown to either increase or almost maintain the same degree of fairness among the nodes as quantified by Jain’s fairness index.