Incorporating traffic dependency information in distributed spectrum allocation

The current low throughput of wireless ad hoc networks is greatly caused by the inefficiency of spectrum usage. With distributed scheduling/spectrum allocation, better spectrum efficiency can be achieved. However, most distributed algorithms consider the neighbors´ traffic independent of each other and ignore the multi-hop nature of flows, leading to the spectrum wastage and inefficiency. By incorporating the multihop nature of flows, we propose a new distributed scheme based on IEEE 802.11 standard, namely ¿2-hop MAC¿. Nodes collect traffic dependency information as well as traffic demand information from neighbors and allocate spectrum distributedly with the knowledge of more accurate traffic demand of the nodes in the neighborhood. Extensive simulation study shows that our proposed scheme can significantly improve the network performance and spectrum efficiency.