Research On PSO-Based Channel Assignment Algorithm In Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Network (WMN), as the next generation wireless network, has been considered as an admirable solution for the "last mile" internet access. Compared with the traditional wireless network, WMN has many advantages including self-forming, self-healing, self-balancing, extensive coverage, low deployment and maintenance cost and so on. Since the increasing development of Multi-Radio Multi-Channel technique, it has been considered as a new solution to improve the throughput of WMN. However, in order to apply MRMC in WMN, channel assignment algorithms have to be modified.The main objective of the channel assignment algorithm is to lower the aggregated interference in the mesh network as well as maximize the network throughput on the condition that network nodes should be connected. There are two major problems in the current channel assignment algorithms. On one hand, the time and space complexity is too high, thus it is unable to be applied in the large-scale network. On the other hand, heuristic channel assignment algorithms are introduced to lower the complexity without achieving the global optimal result.Based on the analysis to the advantages and disadvantages of the current channel assignment algorithms, innovative algorithms should be introduced for solving the channel assignment problem in wireless mesh networks. Thus, this paper analyzes the current channel assignment algorithms and summarizes their disadvantages. Then a model is created for mapping the channel assignment problem to the particle swarm optimization problem. Furthermore, a PSO-Based channel assignment algorithm is introduced and it is proved to be feasible and efficient through simulation experiment from three aspects, network delay, packet loss rate and throughput.