Temporal topology control in multi-channel multihop wireless access networks

In this paper, we exploit the benefit of multiple orthogonal channels in multihop wireless access networks (MWANs) from the aspect of network topology control. Between medium access control and network layers, we propose a novel protocol named multi-channel coordinated temporal topology control (MOTTO). Controlling the temporal network topology through coordinated multi-channel assignments, MOTTO decomposes the contending multihop traffic in a single channel MWAN into small groups of single hop traffics over different channels, epochs and spaces. Such network decomposition effectively reduces the traffic contention and leads to significant capacity improvement in MWANs. Our scheme assumes a single half-duplex radio per node and can be implemented in software over standard off-the-shelf wireless network interface cards (NIC) without changes to MAC and network layers. Simulation results show that MOTTO significantly improves network performance in a number of MWANs scenarios.