Distributed Optimization of Multi-Beam Directional Communication Networks

We formulate an optimization problem for maximizing the data rate of a common message transmitted from nodes within an airborne network broadcast to a central station receiver while maintaining a set of intranetwork rate demands. Assuming that the network has full-duplex links with multi-beam directional capability, we obtain a convex multi-commodity flow problem and use a distributed augmented Lagrangian algorithm to solve for the optimal flows associated with each beam in the network. For each augmented Lagrangian iteration, we propose a scaled gradient projection method to minimize the local Lagrangian function that incorporates the local topology of each node in the network. Simulation results show fast convergence of the algorithm in comparison to simple distributed primal dual methods and highlight performance gains over standard minimum distance-based routing.