A joint scheduling, power control, and routing algorithm for ad hoc wireless networks

In wireless networks there is strong coupling among the traditional layers of the architecture, and these interactions cannot be ignored. One example is the interaction between routing in the network layer and access control in the MAC layer. Another one is the coupling between power control in the physical layer and scheduling in the MAC layer. In this paper, we assume a TDMA-based wireless ad hoc network and provide a centralized algorithm of joint power control, scheduling, and routing. Simulation results show the improvement of the network performance, in terms of throughput, delay, and power consumption, through use of the joint algorithm. Energy efficiency is another important aspect of ad hoc networking, and is considered in our algorithm. Our simulation also shows the trade-off between energy consumption and network throughput or delay performance.