Fair data flows scheduling schema for multihop wireless ad hoc networks

One of the most critical problems in multihop wireless networks is the fair allocation of bandwidth among different nodes. Although there are significant researches on the fairness issues in single-hop wireless networks, research on multihop fairness rarely found in the literature. A user in multi-hop network, besides the contention with other nodes to obtain the channel in physical layer, must find a solution for the inevitable contention between its own and the relayed traffic in the network layer. Accordingly, a suitable mechanism is needed to schedule data flows in network layer fairly. In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed which tries to allocate node´s bandwidth fairly between different contention traffic flows. The main purpose of this algorithm, named HBPQ (History Based Priority Queuing) is the prevention of starvation occurrence for any active flow in the network. HBPQ uses a satisfaction function to measure the user´s gratifications and tries to bring close the satisfaction of users. If HBPQ is used for flow scheduling in multihop wireless ad-hoc networks, the simulation results show that each active network´s flow, receives a throughput proportional to distance between its source and destination and existing traffic load on its traversed path.