162 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING, VOL. 38, NO. 2, SPRING 2015
Throughput–Delay Tradeoff for Wireless
Multichannel Multi-Interface Random Networks
Le compromis entre délais et débits dans les
réseaux aléatoires multi-interfaces
et multicanaux sans fil
Xiaolin Ma, Fangmin Li, Jian Liu, and Xinhua Liu
Abstract—Capturing throughput–delay tradeoff in wireless networks has drawn considerable attention,
as it could bring better usage experience by considering different requirements of throughput/delay demands.
Traditional works consider only typical single-channel single-interface networks, whereas multichannel multi-
interface (MCMI) networks will become mainstream since they provide concurrent transmissions in different
channels, which in turn helps each node to obtain better performance. Unlike previous works, this paper
investigates the throughput–delay tradeoff for MCMI random networks. Two queuing systems, i.e., the
M/M/m queuing system and the m M/M/1 queuing system, are established for MCMI nodes, and a parameter
in routing implementation named routing deviation is also considered in the analytical model. This paper
studies concurrent transmission capacity (CTC) using the physical interference model and also explores the
impact on CTC of different physical parameters. Moreover, the relations between throughput and delay
are achieved using two queuing systems in MCMI random networks respectively. The deterministic results
obtained with a group of real network configuration parameters demonstrate that the proposed tradeoff
model could be applied to the real network scenarios.
Résumé— Le compromis délais/débits dans les réseaux sans fil attire, de plus en plus, une attention
particulière car il pourrait apporter une meilleure utilisation en tenant compte de différentes exigences des
délais/débits. Les recherches traditionnelles ne considèrent que les réseaux typiques à canal et à interface
uniques, alors que les réseaux multi-interfaces et multicanaux (MIMC) deviendront dominants puisqu’ils
fournissent des transmissions simultanées dans différents canaux, ce qui permet à chaque nœud d’obtenir
de meilleures performances. Contrairement aux recherches précédentes, cet article analyse le compromis
délais/débits pour les réseaux aléatoires MIMC. Deux systèmes de file d’attente, c’est-à-dire, le système
M/M/m et le système M/M/1 de file d’attente, sont établis pour les nœuds MIMC. De plus, un paramètre
de routage, nommé écart de routage, est également pris en compte dans le modèle analytique. Cet article
porte sur la capacité de transmission simultanée (CTS) en utilisant le modèle d’interférence physique et
explore également l’impact de différents paramètres physiques sur la CTS. En outre, les relations entre
débit et délai sont obtenues en utilisant deux systèmes de files d’attente dans les réseaux aléatoires MIMC.
Les résultats obtenus avec un groupe de paramètres de configuration de réseaux réels démontrent que le
modèle de compromis proposé pourrait être appliqué aux scénarios réels du réseau.
Index Terms—Multichannel multi-interface (MCMI), queuing system, random networks, routing
deviation (RD), throughput–delay tradeoff.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
RADITIONAL multihop wireless networks are often
built based on single common channel used by all
Manuscript received September 8, 2014; revised December 21, 2014;
accepted February 20, 2015. Date of current version June 10, 2015. This
work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
under Grant 60970019 and Grant 61373042.
X. Ma, F. Li, and X. Liu are with the Key Laboratory of Fiber Optical
Sensing Technology and Information Processing, School of Information
Engineering, Ministry of Education, Wuhan University of Technology,
Wuhan 430070, China (e-mail: maxiaolin0615@whut.edu.cn; lifangmin@
whut.edu.cn; liuxinhua@whut.edu.cn).
J. Liu is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA (e-mail:
jliu28@stevens.edu).
Associate Editor managing this paper’s review: Waleed Ejaz.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/CJECE.2015.2414091
nodes to ensure network connectivity. In such networks, the
network bandwidth utilization rate may become very low due
to collision occurring when two nodes attempt to transmit
simultaneously. This drawback can be tackled by adopting
multichannel multi-interface (MCMI) technology, with which
nodes are equipped with multiple interfaces and leverage
multiple channels to carry data, and thus have the potential
to provide concurrent transmissions without collisions in dif-
ferent channels through different interfaces. In addition, with
the rapid growth in IEEE 802.11 technology [1], which is
widely used in wireless networks and offers multiple available
channels (e.g., IEEE 802.11b offers three nonoverlapping
channels, while IEEE 802.11a offers 12 nonoverlapping chan-
nels), the price of the node constructed with MCMI technology
has reduced sharply. The MCMI-enabled networks, therefore,
have recently received considerable attention and will become
mainstream.
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