Achieving fairness for multi-class traffic in directional multi-interface IEEE 802.11s MCCA

Abstract

IEEE 802.11s mesh network is an efficient technology to provide last mile broadband wireless connectivity using multi-hop mesh communications. Uses of directional antennas increase the performance of mesh network considerably by spatial reuse. IEEE 802.11s MCCA provides equal air-time usage to mesh points using a dynamic TDMA based channel reservation mechanism. However, this does not provide effective Quality of Service for multi-class traffics, where traffics should be forwarded based on their priority. For multi-hop wireless mesh network, end-to-end flow control alone can not solve traffic prioritization, and MAC layer support is required for effective use of wireless channel. In this paper, a joint optimization of end-to-end flow rate and link layer channel access is modeled as a non-linear problem considering the interference model for directional antenna based mesh network. A distributed mechanism is used to solve the optimization using penalty based gradient search method. Simulation results are provided to justify the effectiveness of proposed scheduling mechanism.