Minimizing Interference in WiMax/802.16 Based Mesh Networks with Centralized Scheduling

WiMax/802.16 mesh network is an emerging infrastructure that offers a cost-effective deployment for highspeed wireless broadband access to the back haul network. However, as in most wireless multi-hop networks, WiMax/802.16 mesh suffers from interference that decreases considerably the throughput and spatial reuse of the network. Interference in WiMax/802.16 mesh is a result of several phenomena, namely concurrent transmissions in the neighborhood and data collisions (that need to be avoided) at a receiver from transmitting nodes that are outside the range of each other (hidden terminal nodes). In this paper, we study the problem of minimizing iInterference (MI) in WiMax/802.16 mesh centralized scheduling networks by appropriately routing end connections and assigning slots to them. The proposed model includes the effect of hidden terminal nodes as well as the interferences coming from neighboring nodes. Results show that power-aware routing and adequate frame size selection yield better network performance, a consequence of the improved network spatial reuse.