Partially overlapping channel assignment based on “node orthogonality” for 802.11 wireless networks

In this study, we investigate the problem of partially overlapping channel assignment to improve the performance of 802.11 wireless networks. We first derive a novel interference model that takes into account both the adjacent channel separation and the physical distance of the two nodes employing adjacent channels. This model defines “node orthogonality”, which states that two nodes over adjacent channels are orthogonal if they are physically sufficiently separated. We propose an approximate algorithm MICA to minimize the total interference for throughput maximization. Extensive simulation study has been performed to validate our design and to compare the performances of our algorithm with those of the state-of-the-art.