Throughput Enhancement through Efficient Channel Assignment in Multi-radio Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract:
Use of a single wireless network interface on a device had been the standard practice for a long time due to hardware limitations. Designing a multi-hop ad hoc network with single NIC devices suffers from low bandwidth utilization due to co-channel interference. Recent advances in wireless device technology is spurring the emergence of several end user devices with multiple radios on them. Wireless access networks designed using these multi-radio devices has been shown to give manifold improvement in throughput compared to single channel networks. However, these works have mainly focused on a gateway-based mesh architecture. With growing number of multiradio end user devices, we envision a future where pure ad hoc communication among these devices will become commonplace without a specific structure. This paper provides a distributed solution to the channel assignment problem to multiple NICs in such an ad hoc scenario. The well-known routing protocols used in single channel scenario, namely AODV is used for route selection, but the potential for an improved routing algorithm for multi-channel case has been highlighted. We also provide an interface switching strategy so that the flows are not starved. We evaluate our channel assignment scheme through simulations on GloMoSim.