A Multi-Commodity Flow Model for Optimal Routing in Wireless MESH Networks

We propose a mathematical programming model of the routing problem in multi-hop wireless networks that takes into account quality of service requirements considering bandwidth constraints. The proposed approach is suitable for Wireless MESH Networks (WMN) where topology is almost fixed and routes can be optimized based on global objectives. We then consider and solve the scheduling problem, illustrating how routing and scheduling models can be combined to route flows with guaranteed bandwidth. As an interesting application of the proposed approach, we present some numerical examples that show how our model can be used to estimate the impact of transmission range on network capacity. Index Terms Wireless MESH Networks, Multi-hop Wireless, QoS Routing, Multi-commodity flows.