Performance of Flow Allocation with Successive Interference Cancelation for Random Access WMNs

Manolis Ploumidis,Nikolaos Pappas,Apostolos Traganitis

doi:10.3390/app12062866

Abstract

In this study, we explore the gain that can be achieved by jointly allocating flow on multiple paths and applying successive interference cancelation (SIC), for random access wireless mesh networks with multi-packet reception capabilities. We explore a distributed flow allocation scheme aimed at maximizing average aggregate flow throughput, while also providing bounded delay when SIC is employed. The aforementioned scheme is evaluated both in terms of delay and throughput, and is also compared with other simple flow allocation schemes. We present simulation results from three illustrative topologies. Our results show that the gain for the scheme with SIC, when compared with a variant that treats interference as noise (IAN), can be up to 15.2%, for an SINR threshold value equal to 0.5. For SINR threshold values as high as 2.0 however, SIC does not always result in higher throughput. In some scenarios, the gain of SIC over IAN is insignificant, while in some others treating interference as noise proves to be better. The reason is that, although SIC improves the throughput on a specific link, it also increases the interference imposed on neighboring receivers. We also show that the gain from applying SIC is more profound in cases of a large degree of asymmetry among interfering links.

Highlights

To meet the increased demand for QoS over wireless mesh networks, a large number of studies have suggested aggregating network resources by utilizing multiple paths in parallel
The gain in terms of throughput that can be achieved at the network level, by combining Throughput Optimal Flow Rate Allocation (TOFRA) flow allocation scheme with successive interference cancelation (SIC) is explored
Our results show that the proposed flow allocation scheme achieves up to 15.2% higher aggregate flow throughput (AAT) when combined with SIC, instead of treating interference as noise, for an SINR threshold (γ) value equal to 0.5

Summary

Introduction

To meet the increased demand for QoS over wireless mesh networks, a large number of studies have suggested aggregating network resources by utilizing multiple paths in parallel. Different types of schemes have been suggested that employ multiple paths in parallel, including routing schemes [1], or schemes that perform joint scheduling with routing, power control, or channel assignment [2–4]. Several studies suggest joint congestion control and scheduling approaches [6–8]. Different from these approaches, this work considers multipath utilization for random access networks where no scheduling is assumed. Considering multipath can further alleviate congestion or even act as a diversity factor to potentially improve the network performance by splitting the load and increasing the robustness of the network

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Results

Conclusion