Implementation of distributed time exchange based cooperative forwarding

In this paper, we design and implement time exchange (TE) based cooperative forwarding where nodes use transmission time slots as incentives for relaying. We focus on distributed joint time slot exchange and relay selection in the sum goodput maximization of the overall network. We formulate the design objective as a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem and provide a polynomial time distributed solution of the MINLP. We implement the designed algorithm in the software defined radio enabled USRP nodes of the ORBIT indoor wireless testbed. The ORBIT grid is used as a global control plane for exchange of control information between the USRP nodes. Experimental results suggest that TE can significantly increase the sum goodput of the network. We also demonstrate the performance of a goodput optimization algorithm that is proportionally fair.