User Association Algorithm for Throughput Improvement in High-Density Wireless Networks

The default mechanism for a wireless station to select which access point (AP) to associate with is based on the strength of the received signal by the station. This leads to stations associating to the closest AP. In situations where user stations are concentrated around one AP, the default algorithm (DA) results in an unbalanced distribution of station-AP associations. This causes congestion at the AP with many associated stations, which degrades the network throughput. We propose a novel association algorithm called Time-Load Algorithm (TLA) that associates stations to an AP based on the time-loading of that AP as well as its signal strength. We evaluate the performance of our TLA in comparison with the DA in different scenarios based on network throughput and packet delivery ratio. The simulation results clearly indicate that the TLA outperforms the DA in all scenarios alleviating highly loaded APs and improving throughput experience.