Joint Traffic Splitting, Rate Control, Routing, and Scheduling Algorithm for Maximizing Network Utility in Wireless Mesh Networks

The existence of multiple gateways, as is a common case in wireless mesh networks (WMNs), brings the possibility to improve network performance. However, previous studies, including both heuristic-based works and theory-driven cross-layer design works, cannot guarantee an optimal exploitation of multiple gateways. In this paper, we focus on exploiting multiple gateways optimally to achieve maximum network utility. We first extend the current framework of cross-layer design and formulate a network utility maximization (NUM) problem under WMNs with multiple gateways as a constrained optimization problem. Then, by solving this optimization problem, we propose a novel joint traffic splitting, rate control, routing, and scheduling algorithm called cross-layer control with dynamic gateway selection (CLC_DGS), which splits and distributes network traffic into multiple gateways in an optimal way. We prove that CLC_DGS can achieve maximum network utility. Finally, we run extensive simulations to demonstrate that, compared with the previous methods, CLC_DGS significantly improves the performance of WMNs under various network environments, including gateway heterogeneity, link heterogeneity, and different interference models.