An Optimized Link Scheduling Technique for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using Directional Antennas

In this paper, we study the problem of link scheduling for MANETs with directional antenna capability to maximize the network capacity by utilizing spatial spectrum sharing. The network under consideration is assumed to be time synchronized and uses a superframe structure that consists of a signaling phase and a scheduling phase. An optimized link scheduling technique is proposed, which formulates the process of link scheduling as a binary quadratic programming (BQP) problem. A computationally efficient clustering based optimization algorithm is also proposed. Finally, computer simulations are used to demonstrate the performance and effectiveness of the transmission scheduling technique. Comparisons are made with other link scheduling techniques and the case of no scheduling.