Cross-Layer Design for End-to-End Throughput Maximization and Fairness in MIMO Multihop Wireless Networks

MIMO links can significantly improve network throughput by supporting multiple concurrent data streams between a pair of nodes and suppressing wireless interference. In this paper, we study joint rate control, routing, and scheduling in MIMO-based multihop wireless networks, which are traditionally known as transport layer, network layer, and MAC layer issues, respectively. Our aim is to find a rate allocation along with a flow allocation and a transmission schedule for a set of end-to-end communication sessions so as tomaximize the network throughput and also to achieve the proportional or weighted fairness among these sessions. To this end, we develop Transmission Mode Generating Algorithms (TMGAs), and Linear Programming- (LP-) and Convex Programming- ( CP-) based optimization schemes for the MIMO networks. The performances of the proposed schemes are verified by simulation experiments, and the results show that the different schemes have different performance benefits when achieving a tradeoff between throughput and fairness.