CAREER: Traffic Differentiation in Multihop Wireless Networks

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After WLAN's phenomenal commercial success, multihop wireless networks, including wireless sensor networks, wireless mesh networks, and mobile ad-hoc networks, are expected to lead in the next wave of deployment. From a user's perspective, not only do these networks enable ubiquitous communication, but also they should provide means to support diverse application requirements, particularly, the ability to differentiate various types of data flows and ensure quality of service. The objective of this project is to design distributed algorithms and network protocols to solve several fundamental problems in multihop wireless networks, including end-to-end weighted bandwidth allocation, bandwidth assurance, and performance/overhead tradeoff in traffic differentiation. The study covers a variety of network conditions, including single-commodity or multi-commodity flows, single-path or multi-path routing, and static or highly-dynamic wireless networks. The research focuses on two hop-by-hop, routing-independent, light-weight approaches based on aggregate state and packet labels, respectively. Without maintaining any per-flow state, these approaches are able to implement traffic differentiation under aggregate or weighted maxmin models and have great flexibility in adaptation based on network/traffic conditions. The research results are expected to have significant intellectual and practical impact. Wireless sensor networks, mesh networks, and mobile ad-hoc networks will provide a pervasive communication infrastructure for modern societies and dramatically change the way people interact with cyberspace and physical environment. Traffic-differentiation capability allows these networks to meet diverse application requirements, which will promote their entrance into the marketplace. As an educational effort, this project actively involves senior undergrads and minority students.