Novel request algorithm for distributed scheduling in wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we present a novel request algorithm for distributed scheduling in wireless mesh networks (WMNs). In the distributed scheduling, each node determine its own scheduling such as transmission time and resource allocation according to three way handshaking procedure composed of request, grant, and confirm messages. The proposed request algorithm called multi-link request (MLR) allows each node to transmit the resource request message into multiple grant nodes. In order to solve the hidden grant problem of MLR which cause the resource collision between multiple grant nodes, we also present the group request algorithm for MLR that each request node groups the grant nodes and allocates the available resource to each grant group orthogonally. The simulation results show that the MLR algorithm improves the network throughput compared to the conventional single link request (SLR) dramatically.