With the availability of multiple unlicensed spectral bands, and potential cost-based limitations on the capabilities of individual nodes, it is increasingly relevant to study the performance of multichannel wireless networks with channel switching constraints. To this effect, some constraint models have been recently proposed, and connectivity and capacity results have been formulated for networks of randomly deployed single-interface nodes subject to these constraints. One of these constraint models is termed random (c, f) assignment, wherein each node is pre-assigned a random subset of f channels out of c (each having bandwidth W c), and may only switch on these. Previous results for this model established bounds on network capacity, and proved that when c = O(logn), the per-prnd f flow capacity is O(W nlogn) and Ω(W cnlogn) (where prnd = 1 −(1 − f f f f 2 c)(1 − c−1)...(1 − c − f+1) ≥ 1 − e − c). In this paper we present a lower bound construction that matches the previous upper prnd bound. This establishes the capacity as Θ(W nlogn). The surprising implication of this result is that when f = Ω ( √ c), random (c, f) assignment yields capacity of the same order as attainable via unconstrained switching. The routing/scheduling procedure used by us to achieve capacity requires synchronized route-construction for all flows in the network, leading to the open question of whether it is possible to achieve capacity using asynchronous procedures.

We present practical models for the physical layer behaviors of packet reception and carrier sense with interference in static wireless networks. These models use measurements of a real network rather than abstract RF propagation models as the basis for accuracy in complex environments. Seeding our models requires N trials in an N node network, in which each sender transmits in turn and receivers measure RSSI values and packet counts, both of which are easily obtainable. The models then predict packet delivery and throughput in the same network for different sets of transmitters with the same node placements. We evaluate our models for the base case of two senders that broadcast packets simultaneously. We find that they are effective at predicting when there will be significant interference effects. Across many predictions, we obtain an RMS error for 802.11a and 802.11b of a half and a third, respectively, of a measurement-based model that ignores interference. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.4 [Performance of systems]: Modeling techniques

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This paper describes VINI, a virtual network infrastructure that allows network researchers to evaluate their protocols and services in a realistic environment that also provides a high degree of control over network conditions. VINI allows researchers to deploy and evaluate their ideas with real routing software, traffic loads, and network events. To provide researchers flexibility in designing their experiments, VINI supports simultaneous experiments with arbitrary network topologies on a shared physical infrastructure. This paper tackles the following important design question: What set of concepts and techniques facilitate flexible, realistic, and controlled experimentation (e.g., multiple topologies and the ability to tweak routing algorithms) on a fixed physical infrastructure? We first present VINI’s high-level design and the challenges of virtualizing a single network. We then present PL-VINI, an implementation of VINI on PlanetLab, running the “Internet In a Slice”. Our evaluation of PL-VINI shows that it provides a realistic and controlled environment for evaluating new protocols and services.

Abstract—In this paper, we consider multi-hop wireless mesh networks, where each router node is equipped with multiple radio interfaces and multiple channels are available for communication. We address the problem of assigning channels to communication links in the network with the objective of minimizing overall network interference. Since the number of radios on any node can be less than the number of available channels, the channel assignment must obey the constraint that the number of different channels assigned to the links incident on any node is atmost the number of radio interfaces on that node. The above optimization problem is known to be NP-hard. We design centralized and distributed algorithms for the above channel assignment problem. To evaluate the quality of the solutions obtained by our algorithms, we develop a semidefinite program formulation of our optimization problem to obtain a lower bound on overall network interference. Empirical evaluations on randomly generated network graphs show that our algorithms perform close to the above established lower bound, with the difference diminishing rapidly with increase in number of radios. Also, detailed ns-2 simulation studies demonstrate the performance potential of our channel assignment algorithms in 802.11-based multi-radio mesh networks. I.

This paper considers the interaction between channel assignment and distributed scheduling in multi-channel multiradio Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). Recently, a number of distributed scheduling algorithms for wireless networks have emerged. Due to their distributed operation, these algorithms can achieve only a fraction of the maximum possible throughput. As an alternative to increasing the throughput fraction by designing new algorithms, we present a novel approach that takes advantage of the inherent multi-radio capability of WMNs. We show that this capability can enable partitioning of the network into subnetworks in which simple distributed scheduling algorithms can achieve 100 % throughput. The partitioning is based on the notion of Local Pooling. Using this notion, we characterize topologies in which 100 % throughput can be achieved distributedly. These topologies are used in order to develop a number of centralized channel assignment algorithms that are based on a matroid intersection algorithm. These algorithms pre-partition a network in a manner that not only expands the capacity regions of the subnetworks but also allows distributed algorithms to achieve these capacity regions. We evaluate the performance of the algorithms via simulation and show that they significantly increase the distributedly achievable capacity region. We note that while the identified topologies are of general interference graphs, the partitioning algorithms are designed for networks with primary interference constraints.

This paper presents a highly efficient and accurate link-quality measurement framework, called EAR (Efficient and Accurate link-quality monitoR), for multi-hop wireless mesh networks, that has several salient features. First, it exploits three complementary measurement schemes: passive, cooperative, and active monitoring. EAR maximizes the measurement accuracy by (i) dynamically and adaptively adopting one of these schemes and (ii) opportunistically exploiting the unicast application traffic present in the network, while minimizing the measurement overhead. Second, EAR effectively identifies the existence of wireless link asymmetry by measuring the quality of each link in both directions of the link, thus improving the utilization of network capacity by up to 114%. Finally, its reliance on both the network layer and the IEEE 802.11-based device driver solutions makes EAR easily deployable in existing multi-hop wireless mesh networks without system recompilation or MAC firmware modification. EAR has been evaluated extensively via both ns-2-based simulation and experimentation on our Linux-based implementation. Both simulation and experimentation results have shown EAR to provide highly accurate link-quality measurements with minimum overhead.

Abstract — In this paper we consider the problem of a wireless LAN selecting a channel to minimise interference with other WLANs. We focus on interfering infrastructure-mode networks, where each access point (AP) or base station has a wired backhaul link. We introduce a new fully distributed and selfmanaged channel selection algorithm that does not require direct communication between APs nor explicit estimation of the network interference graph. The sole information required by the algorithm is feedback to each WLAN on the presence of interference on a chosen channel; such feedback is already commonly provided by WLAN protocols such as 802.11. We establish that convergence of the distributed algorithm is guaranteed provided that the channel selection problem is feasible. Extensive simulation results are presented that demonstrate rapid convergence under a wide range of network conditions and topologies. While the scope of the present paper is confined to infrastructure networks with static topology, the utility of the proposed algorithm in situations where the network topology is time-varying is briefly discussed. I.

Abstract — We address the problem of interference aware routing in multi-radio infrastructure mesh networks wherein each mesh node is equipped with multiple radio interfaces and a subset of nodes serve as Internet gateways. We present a new interference aware routing metric – iAWARE that aids in finding paths that are better in terms of reduced interflow and intra-flow interference. We incorporate this metric and new support for multi-radio networks in the well known AODV routing protocol to design an enhanced AODV-MR routing protocol. We study the performance of our new routing metric by implementing it in our wireless testbed consisting of 12 mesh nodes. We show that iAWARE tracks changes in interfering traffic far better than existing well known link metrics such as ETT and IRU. We also demonstrate that our AODV-MR protocol delivers increased throughput in single radio and two radio mesh networks compared to similar protocol with WCETT and MIC routing metrics. We also show that in the case of two radio mesh networks, our metric achieves good intra-path channel diversity. I.

We consider the channel assignment problem for multihop wireless networks in which nodes have multiple interfaces. Given the number of interfaces at each node and available channels in the system, we find a feasible channel assignment to improve network performance. Even when routing is given, finding a channel assignment for optimal performance is NP-hard. We present the SAFE (Skeleton Assisted partition FrEe) channel assignment scheme, which uses randomized channel assignment in a distributed manner while maintaining network connectivity. SAFE can utilize all independent channels in the system while attempting to distribute edges sharing a particular channel evenly throughout the network. To handle topology change and incremental deployment better, SAFE decouples the channel assignment problem from routing. Our simulation results show that SAFE significantly improves network performance in terms of throughput and delay and is comparable to the best prior centralized scheme that jointly considers routing and channel assignment.