Optimal Channel Width Adaptation, Logical Topology Design, and Routing in Wireless Mesh Networks

Radio frequency spectrum is a finite and scarce resource. How to efficiently use the spectrum resource is one of the fundamental issues for multi-radio multi-channel wireless mesh networks. However, past research efforts that attempt to exploit multiple channels always assume channels of fixed predetermined width, which prohibits the further effective use of the spectrum resource. In this paper, we address how to optimally adapt channel width to more efficiently utilize the spectrum in IEEE802.11-based multi-radio multi-channel mesh networks. We mathematically formulate the channel width adaptation, logical topology design, and routing as a joint mixed 0-1 integer linear optimization problem, and we also propose our heuristic assignment algorithm. Simulation results show that our method can significantly improve spectrum use efficiency and network performance.