Distributed SINR based Scheduling Algorithm for Multi-hop Wireless Networks

The problem of developing high-performance distributed scheduling algorithms for multi-hop wireless networks has seen enormous interest in recent years. The problem is especially challenging when studied under a physical interference model, which requires the SINR at the receiver to be above a certain threshold for decoding success. Under such an SINR model, transmission failure may be caused by interference due to simultaneous transmissions from far away nodes, which exacerbates the difficulty in developing a distributed algorithm. In this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm that exploits carrier sensing and show that the algorithm is not only amenable to distributed implementation, but also results in throughput optimality. Our algorithm has a feature called the "dual-state" approach, which separates the transmission schedules from the system state and can be shown to improve delay performance.