Path Assignment in Mesh Networks at the Edge of Wireless Networks

Abstract

We consider a mesh network at the edge of a wireless network that connects users to the core network via multiple base stations. For this scenario, we present a novel tree-search-based algorithm that strives to identify effective communication path to the core network for each user by maximizing the signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SNIR) along the chosen path. We show that, for three mesh networks of varying sizes, our algorithm selects paths with minimum SNIR values that are 3 dB to 18 dB higher than those obtained through an algorithm that disregards interference within the network, 16 dB to 20 dB higher than those chosen randomly by a random path selection algorithm, and 0.5 dB to 7 dB higher compared to a recently introduced genetic algorithm (GA). Furthermore, we demonstrate that our algorithm has lower computational complexity compared to the GA in networks where its performance is within 2 dB of ours.