Interference-aware multicast and broadcast routing in wireless mesh networks using both rate and channel diversity q Avid Avokh ⇑ , Ghasem Mirjalily Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran article info Article history: Received 22 September 2012 Received in revised form 21 May 2013 Accepted 23 May 2013 Available online xxxx abstract This paper deals with the problem of load-balanced routing in multi-radio multi-rate multi-channel wireless mesh networks. Our analysis relies on the multicast and broadcast sessions, where each session has a specific bandwidth requirement. We show that using both rate and channel diversity significantly improves the network performance. Toward this goal, we propose two cross-layer algorithms named the ‘‘Interference- and Rate-aware Multicast Tree (IRMT)’’ and the ‘‘Interference- and Rate-aware Broadcast Tree (IRBT)’’. The proposed algorithms jointly address the problems of routing tree construction, transmis- sion channel selection, transmission rate selection, and call admission control. As an advantage, the IRMT and the IRBT algorithms consider both inter-flow and intra-flow inter- ference. These schemes not only improve the utilization of the network resources, but also balance the traffic load over the network. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms in terms of the number of transmissions, the load-balancing, and the network throughput. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are a class of multi-hop networks that provide low-cost solutions for broadband wire- less applications. These networks suffer from the capacity degradation due to the co-channel interference. An effective ap- proach to mitigate the co-channel interference is to equip the mesh routers with multiple radios tuned to non-overlapping channels. The availability of high bandwidth in Multi-Radio Multi-Channel WMNs (MRMC-WMNs) increases the possibility of using the multimedia applications. In this regard, the multicast routing provides underlying facilities for better utilization of the network resources [1,2]. A basic difference between multicast routing in wireless networks and wired networks is the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. This leads to a well-known property named Wireless Broadcast Advantage (WBA). Based on this property, a single transmission of a node can simultaneously cover multiple neighboring receivers. The mul- ticast flows are usually characterized by a bandwidth requirement to ensure the Quality of Service (QoS). Thus, the multicast routing algorithms must use call admission control mechanisms to protect the QoS requirements of the existing flows [3]. On the other hand, the traffic distribution in MRMC-WMNs is naturally unbalanced. In this situation, a load-aware routing strat- egy balances the traffic across the network and increases the number of admitted sessions. The channel assignment problem is another issue that should be addressed in MRMC-WMNs. In the literature, the chan- nel assignment is usually considered as a joint issue with the routing problem. However, when the traffic demand is dy- namic, it is meaningless to jointly address the routing and the channel assignment problems for the future sessions in advance [4]. In this regard, channel switching is an approach for enhancing the flexibility of the network. Unfortunately, 0045-7906/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2013.05.008 q Reviews processed and approved for publication by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Manu Malek. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 9376633012. E-mail addresses: aavokh@stu.yazd.ac.ir (A. Avokh), mirjalily@yazd.ac.ir (G. Mirjalily). Computers and Electrical Engineering xxx (2013) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Computers and Electrical Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compeleceng Please cite this article in press as: Avokh A, Mirjalily G. Interference-aware multicast and broadcast routing in wireless mesh networks using both rate and channel diversity. Comput Electr Eng (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2013.05.008