Distributed dynamic channel assignment in wireless networks

This paper studies the online channel assignment problem arising in dynamic wireless networks. The goal is to assign channels to communication links such that interference (or the number of conflicts) in the network is minimized. We model the problem as an online edge coloring problem. This problem is NP-hard by a reduction from EDGE COLORING. We present an online distributed greedy algorithm that gives a solution with at most 2(1 - 1/k)|E| more conflicts than the optimal solution, which implies a (2 - 1/k)-approximation. We then show that this ratio is tight by proving a lower bound that matches the above ratio.