Scheduling with interference decoding: Complexity and algorithms

In this article we study the problem of scheduling wireless links in the physical interference model with interference decoding capability. We analyze two models with different decoding strategies that explore the fact that interfering signals should not be treated as random noise, but as well-structured signals. The first model makes use of successive interference cancelation, which allows the strongest signal to be iteratively decoded and subtracted from a collision, thus enabling the decoding of weaker simultaneous signals. The second model explores the fact that routers are able to forward the interfered signal of a pair of nodes that wish to exchange a message and these nodes are able to decode the collided messages by subtracting their own contribution from the interfered signal. We prove that the scheduling problem remains NP-complete in both models. Moreover, we propose a polynomial-time scheduling algorithm that uses successive interference cancelation to compute short schedules for network topologies formed by nodes arbitrarily distributed in the Euclidean plane. We prove that the proposed algorithm is correct in the physical interference model and provide simulation results demonstrating the performance of the algorithm in different network topologies. We compare the results to solutions without successive interference cancelation and observe that considerable throughput gains are obtained in certain scenarios.