Fair end-to-end rate allocation and stream control in MIMO-based WMNs

Multiple-Input Multiple-output (MIMO) has great potential for improving the throughput of Wireless mesh networks (WMNs). MIMO can increase network throughput via suppressing interference from neighboring links and/or allowing transmission of multiple independent data streams over MIMO antenna elements. However, these throughput gains are limited unless higher layer protocols also exploit these capacities. In this paper, we are interested in analyzing the benefits of spatial reuse and spatial multiplexing capabilities of MIMO in WMNs. We formulate a joint rate allocation, routing, and stream control problem in MIMO enabled WMNs. Our objective is to find a rate allocation such that the network throughput is maximized. As going only for throughput maximization may result in a severe bias on rate allocation, we also define a proportional fair rate allocation problem. Simulation results show that the proportional fair rate allocation scheme achieves a good tradeoff between throughput and fairness. It is also shown that the network throughput increases linearly as the number of antenna increases.