Dynamic frame partitioning scheme for IEEE 802.16 mesh networks

The IEEE 802.16 mesh network is a promising next generation wireless backbone network. In the network, the allocation of minislots is handled by centralized scheduling and distributed scheduling, which are independently exercised. However, the standard does not specify how the frame can be partitioned among its centralized and distributed schedulers. Through efficient partitioning that dynamically adapts the partitioning based on demand, network can support more user applications. Although a dynamic frame partitioning scheme to use Markov model has been studied, the dynamic frame partitioning method has not been fully investigated. This paper proposes two novel and general dynamic frame partitioning scheme for IEEE 802.16 mesh networks so that the minislot allocation can be more flexible and the utilization is increased. The two schemes respectively use GM(1,1)-Markov model and Grey-Verhulst-Markov model to predict efficient partitions for future frames according to the minislot utilization in current frames. Our study indicates that the two proposed schemes outperform the scheme of using Markov model. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.