Quantifying the impact of routing and scheduling on throughput for wireless networks

Current evaluations of DoD tactical networking systems have left the impression of sub-optimal performance without being able to provide either a clear vision of the limits on the performance that could realistically be attained or which layers of the network algorithm are responsible for the suboptimal results. Recent advances in computing the capacity of a large MANET allow us to obtain a practical benchmark for MANET capacity performance evaluation [1]. In this paper, we quantify the impact of commonly used algorithms at the routing and the scheduling layers on the overall network throughput and compare their individual effects on overall network throughput performance. We consider the routing and the scheduling layers separately since practical MANET implementations are likely to use a layered architecture even though the joint routing and scheduling algorithm is known to be optimal. Our data shows that a good scheduling algorithm can provide potentially four times the throughput improvement of a good routing algorithm when inter-user interference conforms to an 802.11 type model.