Mean field network based QoS routing scheme in wireless mesh networks

Multi-constrained quality-of-service routing (QoSR) is to find a feasible path that satisfies multiple constraints simultaneously, as an NPC problem, which is also a big challenge for wireless mesh networks. There are few methods, which can solve this problem effectively so far. In this paper, we propose a novel routing scheme based on mean field network (MFN_RS) to solve this problem. This algorithm first uses a function of the wireless link's delay and capacity both of which are QoS parameters as the cost function, and then seeks to find a feasible path by mean field annealing. Because MFN_RS uses a set of deterministic equations to replace the stochastic process in simulated annealing (SA), and uses saddle point approximation in the calculation of the stationary probability distribution at equilibrium, thus the convergence time is much less than the algorithm based on SA. Simulation results demonstrate that MFN_RS is an effective algorithm and is very fit for wireless mesh networks where the topology may be changing constantly.