Partial Bit Strings Pruning Channel Assignment in Multi-Rate Multi-Channel Wireless Networks

Abstract

IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks are extensively used in mesh, ad hoc, and sensor networks due to less expense and easier deployment. IEEE 802.11a/b/g standard supports multi-rate and multi-channel settings to facilitate network transmissions. Many researchers focus on maximizing network throughput and propose channel assignment algorithms in IEEE based multi-rate multi-channel (M2) wireless networks. Less works are devoted to the study of network capacity in M2 wireless networks. In our observation, static channel assignment algorithms for maximizing network throughput may limit network capacity, and the improvement on network capacity comes mainly from higher data rate communication links. Therefore, we model the optimization problem and derive the optimization formula in detail. Subsequently, we propose an efficient channel assignment algorithm, Partial Bit Strings Pruning (PBSP) channel assignment to maximize network capacity. The results of associated simulations show that the performance of our PBSP channel assignment algorithm is superior to the algorithm based on the well-know minimum-interference approach.