Link scheduling in multi-transmit-receive wireless mesh networks

A Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is comprised of mesh routers and mesh clients that are able to self-organize into an arbitrary network topology. Routers in WMNs are able to send/receive packets to/from the Internet, and relay packets for other nodes. Hence, WMNs are widely used to improve network coverage, and are ideal as a communication backbone that serves users in metropolitan as well as rural areas. However, their capacity is of concern to operators and researchers. A promising approach to increase their capacity is to equip each router with multiple transmit (Tx) or receive (Rx) capability, aka MTR. This can be achieved for example using multiple off-the-shelf IEEE 802.11 radios and parabolic antennas, 60 GHz radios or Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) wireless technologies. In these systems, nodes operate over a single frequency and can transmit to or receive from multiple distinct neighbors concurrently. However, they will experience collision when they transmit and receive at the same time.