Link Scheduling for Multiple Multicast Sessions in Distributed Wireless Networks

TL;DR

This paper develops and evaluates link scheduling algorithms for maximizing throughput in distributed multicast wireless networks, considering interference and power control, with solutions based on ILP and MILP formulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ILP and MILP-based framework for multicast link scheduling that decomposes multicast sessions into point-to-point links for better flexibility.

Findings

ILP and MILP formulations effectively optimize throughput

Power control improves scheduling efficiency

Performance varies with traffic load and group size

Abstract

In this letter we investigate link scheduling algorithms for throughput maximization in multicast wireless networks. According to our system model, each source node transmits to a multicast group that resides one hop away. We adopt the physical interference model to reflect the aggregate signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) at each node of the multicast group. We present an ILP formulation of the aforementioned problem. The basic feature of the problem formulation is that it decomposes the single multicast session into the corresponding point-to-point links. The rationale is that a solution algorithm has more flexibility regarding the scheduling options for individual nodes. The extended MILP problem that also considers power control is solved with LP relaxation. Performance results for both the ILP and MILP problems are obtained for different traffic loads and different number of nodes per multicast group.