Delay-Constrained Optimal Link Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 59; no. 9; pp. 4564 - 4577
• Main Authors: Qing Wang, Wu, Dapeng Oliver, Pingyi Fan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.11.2010; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Access control; Access methods and protocols, osi model; Algorithms; Applied sciences; Channels; Column generation; Delay; delay constraint; Detection, estimation, filtering, equalization, prediction; effective capacity (EC); Exact sciences and technology; Fading; Information, signal and communications theory; Interference; link scheduling; Links; Networks; Optimal scheduling; Optimization; Quality of service; Scheduling; Searching; Sensors; Services and terminals of telecommunications; Signal and communications theory; Signal to noise ratio; Signal, noise; Studies; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Telemetry. Remote supervision. Telewarning. Remote control; Teleprocessing networks. Isdn; Transmission and modulation (techniques and equipments); Wireless sensor networks; Access control; link scheduling; Wireless telecommunication; Optimization method; Information rate; Iterative method; Power allocation; Implementation; Remote sensing; Optimal strategy; Column generation; Delay time; Optimal planning; Signal detection; Fading channels; Mixed integer programming; Scheduling; delay constraint; Algorithm; Information transmission; Constrained optimization; NP hard problem; effective capacity (EC); Wireless network; Access protocol; Signal to interference plus noise ratio; Sensor array
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2010.2080695

We consider the optimal link scheduling problem in wireless sensor networks. The optimal link scheduler under our consideration is intended to assign time slots to different users to minimize channel usage subject to constraints on data rate, delay bound, and delay bound violation probability; we study the problem under fading channels and a signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR)-based interference model. To the best of our knowledge, this problem has not been studied previously. We use the effective capacity model to formulate the optimal link scheduling as a mixed-integer optimization problem. We first discuss a simple case, namely, the scheduling with a fixed power allocation, and then extend to the case with variable transmit power. Moreover, because the mixed-integer optimization problem is NP-hard, we propose a computationally feasible column-generation-based iterative algorithm to search for a suboptimal solution to the problem. Finally, we design a medium access control (MAC) protocol to implement our optimal link scheduling strategy in practical wireless networks. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed scheme achieves a larger throughput, a larger admission region, and a higher power efficiency than a benchmark time-division multiple-access (TDMA) system.