Distributed scheduling algorithms for channel access in TDMA wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we have considered the distributed scheduling problem for channel access in TDMA wireless mesh networks. The problem is to assign time-slot(s) for nodes to access the channels, and it is guaranteed that nodes can communicate with all their one-hop neighbors in the assigned time-slot(s). And the objective is to minimize the cycle length, i.e., the total number of different time-slots in one scheduling cycle. In single-channel ad hoc networks, the best known result for this problem is proved to be K2 in arbitrary graphs (IEEE Trans Comput C-36(6):729–737, 1987) and 25K in unit disk graphs (IEEE/ACM Trans Netw pp 166–177, 1993) with K as the maximum node degree. There are multiple channels in wireless mesh networks, and different nodes can use different control channels to reduce congestion on the control channels. In this paper, we have considered two scheduling models for wireless mesh networks. The first model is that each node has two radios, and the scheduling is simultaneously done on the two radios. We have proved that the upper bound of the cycle length in arbitrary graphs can be 2K. The second model is that the time-slots are scheduled for the nodes regardless of the number of radios on them. In this case, we have proved that the upper bound can be (4K−2). We also have proposed greedy algorithms with different criterion. The basic idea of these algorithms is to organize the conflicting nodes by special criterion, such as node identification, node degree, the number of conflicting neighbors, etc. And a node cannot be assigned to a time-slot(s) until all neighbor nodes, which have higher criterion and might conflict with the current node, are assigned time-slot(s) already. All these algorithms are fully distributed and easy to realize. Simulations are also done to verify the performance of these algorithms.