Physical Interference Modeling for Transmission Scheduling on Commodity WiFi Hardware

—The demand for capacity in WiFi networks is driving a new look at transmission scheduling based link layers, particularly in the context of mesh networks. One basic issue here is the use of accurate interference models to drive transmission scheduling algorithms. However, experimental work in this space has been limited. In this work, we use commodity WiFi hardware (specifically, 802.11a) for a comprehensive study on interference modeling for transmission scheduling on a mesh setup. We focus on the well-known physical interference model for its realism. We empirically build the physical interference model via a packet reception rate vs. SINR relationship using a measurement driven method. We propose use of the “graded” version of the model where feasibility of a link is probabilistic, as opposed to using the more traditional “thresholded” version, where feasibility is binary. We show experimentally that the graded model is significantly more accurate (80 percentile error 0...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Ritesh Maheshwari, Jing Cao, Samir R. Das
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2009, Interference Models, Physical Interference Model, Transmission Scheduling