Scheduling algorithm for fairness improvement among subscribers in multihop wireless networks

Recently, attention has focused on multihop wireless networks capable of expanding the communication area by employing wireless relays between nodes and access points. However, the problem in a multihop wireless network is differences arise in the throughput caused by the number of hops from the base station connected to wired networks. In this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm which solves this problem. In this proposal, the uplink packets and downlink packets are queued separately, and the uplink packets are classified into packets originated within the node and forwarded packets from adjacent wireless nodes and queued. When the node transmits a packet, the fairness among the nodes is improved by scheduling based on the source identifiers of the queued packets. The results of a performance evaluation using a network simulator verified a maximum tenfold improvement in the fairness among the subscribers compared to typical schemes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 90(4): 11–22, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20364