An Access Point Allocation Algorithm for Indoor Environments in Wireless Mesh Networks

As a flexible, cost effective solution for a large-scale access network to the Internet, we have studied the design optimization of the Wireless Internet-access Mesh NETwork (WIMNET). WIMNET consists of multiple access points (APs) that have wireless links between them mainly on the wireless distribution system (WDS). In WIMNET, the links around the Internet gateway can be bottlenecks because every packet passes through it after multihop link activations. Besides, the link quality may be degraded by obstacles in indoor environments. Thus, the proper allocation of APs is essential in WIMNET, so that the communication quality should be ensured while the installation and management cost be minimized. In this paper, we formulate this AP allocation problem for indoor environments in WIMNET with the proof of the NP-completeness of its decision version. Then, we present its two-stage heuristic algorithm composed of the initial greedy allocation and the iterative improvement. The effectiveness of our proposal is verified through extensive simulations in three indoor environments.

[1]  Charles J. Colbourn,et al.  Unit disk graphs , 1991, Discret. Math..

[2]  Matthew S. Gast,et al.  802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide , 2002 .

[3]  Xiang-Yang Li,et al.  Gateway Placement for Throughput Optimization in Wireless Mesh Networks , 2008, Mob. Networks Appl..

[4]  Teruo Higashino,et al.  An Internet Gateway Access-Point Selection Problem forWireless Infrastructure Mesh Networks , 2006, 7th International Conference on Mobile Data Management (MDM'06).

[5]  Steven Chamberland,et al.  On the wireless local area network design problem with performance guarantees , 2005, Comput. Networks.

[6]  Nobuo Funabiki,et al.  A minimum-delay routing tree algorithm for access-point communications in Wireless Mesh Networks , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Research, Innovation and Vision for the Future in Computing and Communication Technologies.

[7]  Éva Tardos,et al.  Facility location with nonuniform hard capacities , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing.

[8]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Wireless mesh networks: a survey , 2005, Comput. Networks.

[9]  Guillaume de la Roche,et al.  A QoS-based FAP criterion for Indoor 802.11 wireless LAN optimization , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Communications.

[10]  Nobuo Funabiki,et al.  A Channel Configuration Problem for Access-Point Communications in Wireless Mesh Networks , 2007, 2007 15th IEEE International Conference on Networks.

[11]  Tzi-cker Chiueh,et al.  Architecture and algorithms for an IEEE 802.11-based multi-channel wireless mesh network , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[12]  Lajos Nagy,et al.  Indoor base station location optimization using genetic algorithms , 2000, 11th IEEE International Symposium on Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications. PIMRC 2000. Proceedings (Cat. No.00TH8525).

[13]  David S. Johnson,et al.  Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness , 1978 .

[14]  Musa A. Mammadov,et al.  Coverage in WLAN with Minimum Number of Access Points , 2006, 2006 IEEE 63rd Vehicular Technology Conference.

[15]  Funabiki Nobuo,et al.  Throughput Measurements under Various Contention Window Sizes in Wireless Mesh Networks , 2007 .

[16]  Hung-Yun Hsieh,et al.  Interworking Wireless Mesh Networks: Performance Characterization and Perspectives , 2007, IEEE GLOBECOM 2007 - IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference.

[17]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Wireless communications - principles and practice , 1996 .

[18]  Edward W. Knightly,et al.  Adding Capacity Points to a Wireless Mesh Network Using Local Search , 2008, IEEE INFOCOM 2008 - The 27th Conference on Computer Communications.

[19]  Yasuo Tan,et al.  A Multi-Purpose Wireless Network Emulator: QOMET , 2008, 22nd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications - Workshops (aina workshops 2008).

[20]  H. T. Kung,et al.  Load-balancing routing for wireless access networks , 2001, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2001. Conference on Computer Communications. Twentieth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Society (Cat. No.01CH37213).

[21]  David R. Karger,et al.  A scalable location service for geographic ad hoc routing , 2000, MobiCom '00.

[22]  Nomura Yohei,et al.  An experimental result of communication bands for a wireless mesh network , 2006 .

[23]  David Lichtenstein,et al.  Planar Formulae and Their Uses , 1982, SIAM J. Comput..

[24]  Ranveer Chandra,et al.  Optimizing the placement of Internet TAPs in wireless neighborhood networks , 2004, Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols, 2004. ICNP 2004..

[25]  Yanghee Choi,et al.  Optimization of AP placement and channel assignment in wireless LANs , 2002, 27th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks, 2002. Proceedings. LCN 2002..