On Finding Maximum Disjoint Paths for Many-to-One Routing in Wireless Multi-Hop Network

Provisioning multiple paths can improve fault tolerance and transport capability of multi-routing in wireless networks. Disjoint paths can improve the diversity of paths and further reduce the risk of simultaneous link failure and network congestion. In this paper we first address a many-to-one disjoint-path problem (MOND) for multi-path routing in a multi-hop wireless network. The objective of this problem is to maximize the minimum number of disjoint paths of every source to the destination. We prove that it is NP-hard to obtain k disjoint paths for every source when k ≥ 3. To solve this problem efficiently, we propose a heuristic algorithm called TOMAN based on network flow theory. Experimental results demonstrate that it outperforms three related algorithms. key words: disjoint path, multi-routing, multi-hop, heuristic algorithm