Minimizing information asymmetry interference using optimal channel allocation in wireless mesh networks

The Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are implemented in IEEE 802.11 standards and are widely used due to its adaptability in real-time network scenarios; where the overall performance has been increased by incorporating Multi-Radio and Multi-Channel (MRMC). However, due to the limited number of frequency spectrums in IEEE 802.11 standards and co-located links' channel interference, the problem of channel assignment arises for maximum utilization of available bandwidth. One of the well-known interference issues is Information Asymmetry (IA) interference where the source mesh nodes of different mesh links cannot sense each other’s activity before transmitting data on the same frequency channel. This non-coordination among various mesh nodes leads to data collision and packet loss within the data flows, which degrades the overall performance of mesh network. In this work, we propose a novel and near-optimal channel assignment model called Information Asymmetry Minimization (IAM) model using integer linear programming. The proposed IAM model incorporates various constraints within MRMC-WMNs along with the objectives and optimally assigns non-overlapping channels (1, 6 and 11) from IEEE 802.11b technology to various MRMC-WMN links. Our objective is to minimize the information asymmetry interference among various mesh nodes, which in turn minimizes the communication disruption while increasing the overall network throughput. Furthermore, using OPNET simulator, the proposed model is tested on different network scenarios for randomly generated mesh topologies of various mesh nodes. We show that our proposed model gives 11% aggregate network capacity improvement over the traditional RTS/CTS mechanism.