Resource Sharing and Bandwidth Allocation for WiMAX Mesh Networks using Centralized Scheduling

Abstract

IEEE 802.16, also known as WiMAX, is considered to be an important technology for next-generation wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) and has received great attention for its potential applications. WiMAX supports two types of modes: point-to-multipoint mode and mesh mode. While the point-to-multipoint mode is well developed, the mesh mode still has many design issues to be addressed, such as routing and packet scheduling algorithms. This paper investigates the routing and packet scheduling algorithms of WiMAX mesh networks. Three sets of routing and packet scheduling algorithms are proposed: (1) interference-based optimal routing and parallel-relay-based packet scheduling, (2) link-prioritization-based routing and link-group-based packet scheduling, and (3) minimal-conflict-cost routing and deficiency-fair priority-based packet scheduling. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can make efficient use of radio resource.