The impact of joint routing and link scheduling on the performance of wireless mesh networks

Increasing the capacity of wireless mesh networks has motivated numerous studies. In this context, link scheduling has been one of the most investigated mechanisms. However, the isolated use of scheduling mechanisms does not guarantee a significant increase in capacity independently of the routes followed by traffic. For this reason, the use of cross-layer optimization techniques involving joint use of scheduling and routing has been recommended in the literature. This paper demonstrates the loss of efficiency caused by the lack of interaction between these two mechanisms. Then, a joint mechanism is proposed, evaluated and compared through simulations. Results show the gains obtained by using this approach.