Routing for minimum length schedule in multi-channel TDMA based wireless mesh networks

In TDMA based wireless mesh networks, routing and scheduling algorithms are essential to provide QoS support for mesh clients. In order to maximize the network throughput and minimize session delay, the routing and scheduling algorithms should produce a minimum length schedule. A linear programming formulation enables an optimal solution, however has very high computational cost. In this paper, we consider network scenarios where multiple orthogonal channels are available. With a channel assignment algorithm to eliminate secondary interference, we are able to use a scheduling algorithm that yields the minimum length schedule given a specific routing tree. We then propose a heuristic routing algorithm that aims to build the routing tree that results in the minimum length schedule. Our routing algorithm performs significantly better than simple routing algorithms, which are based on Breadth First Search or Dijkstra algorithms.