Efficient rate allocation, routing and channel assignment in wireless mesh networks supporting dynamic traffic flows

In this paper we address the issue of joint routing, channel re-assignment and rate allocation in multi-radio multi-channel Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) with the goal of optimizing the performance of the current set of flows in the WMN. The objective is to balance the instantaneous traffic in the network at the flow level, optimize link-channel assignment and allocate flow rates to achieve proportional fairness given the current traffic and network constraints, including the topology, interference characteristics, number of available channels and radios. Unlike prior work, we do not assume a priori knowledge of traffic, and instead take into account the instantaneous traffic conditions to optimize performance at the flow level, taking both throughput and fairness into account. In this work we analyze the problem and, due to its hardness, propose a fast heuristic algorithm (JRCAR) to solve it. We evaluate this algorithm through numerical experiments, including comparisons against optimal solutions. In addition, we show that JRCAR can be used in a highly responsive system in practical scenarios with time-varying traffic conditions. We implement such a system under the ns-3 simulator, where the simulation results obtained corroborate the behavior observed in the numerical experiments and show that JRCAR is effective in dynamic and practical conditions.