A novel scheduling algorithm for mmWave mesh networks using packet aggregation

Abstract

In this paper, we address throughput improvement in a millimeter wave (mmW) mesh network via using packet aggregation and block acknowledgement that were firstly introduced in IEEE 802.11e/n. Specifically, we introduce a distributed TDM scheduling algorithm that targets achieving fairness among the nodes, increasing the air utilization via maximizing the total number of reserved slots for all nodes as well as increasing capacity by reserving the slots for each node in a contiguous fashion as much as possible to make the use of packet aggregation doable. Extensive simulations of the proposed algorithm show that it raised the network throughput by almost 70% compared to the well-known memory-guided directional MAC (MDMAC) due to reducing the transmission overhead.