Routing Optimization Model in Multihop Wireless Access Networks for Disaster Recovery

On-the-fly establishment of multihop wireless access networks (OEMAN) is a new wireless communication approach to quickly establish temporary Internet connectivity in a disaster region. OEMAN creates virtual access points on mobile devices of disaster victims to reach still-alive access points of the Internet so that rescuers can be informed about their status and position. The simple routing strategy in OEMAN is based on a tree like topology raising some traffic load balancing issues at nodes closed to the root. In this paper, we propose a linear program for overload-aware routing. Moreover, we consider wireless interference and integrate it into our routing optimization model. Our evaluations implemented in Matlab show that the overload-aware routing improves load balancing among available virtual access points in OEMAN. By avoiding nodes with heavy load in the network, our solution improves network throughput compared to overload-unaware routing.