Expected Data Rate: An Accurate High-Throughput Path Metric For Multi-Hop Wireless Routing

by
Juncheol Park

Advised by
Sneha Kasera

We present a new metric, Expected Data Rate (EDR), for accurately finding high-throughput paths for multi-hop ad hoc wireless networks. Our metric is based upon a new model for transmission interference which is a critical factor in determining path throughput. We construct a realistic and practical transmission interference model by (1) determining transmission contention degree of each node as a function of the wireless link loss, (2) quantifying the impact of the wireless link loss on medium access backoff, and (3) considering possible concurrent transmissions when two links do not interfere with each other. Our transmission interference model also takes the non-optimality of IEEE 802.11 medium access scheduling into account. Using extensive ns-2 simulations of IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks, we find that EDR can accurately determine the achievable data rates of ad hoc paths, thereby significantly outperforming the other existing metrics.