Minimal Cost Deployment of Multi-radio and Multi-rate Wireless Mesh Networks with QoS Requirements in Indoor Environment

A wireless mesh network consists of three types of nodes: AP (access point) nodes that provide front-end access to wireless clients, MR (mesh router) nodes that interconnect AP nodes and gateway nodes to form a mesh backbone network, and gateway nodes that are connected to internet by wired line to provide internet connection for the mesh network. The principal goal of this project is to investigate the optimal placement of APs, MRs, and gateways in indoor environment such that the clients QoS requirements clients are met and the total financial cost of the network is minimized. The unit prices for AP, MR and gateway are different. We divide the problem into several sub-tasks as the following:developing optimal algorithms for placing APs in an area such that clients bandwidth requirement can be met and the total cost of APs is minimized. We consider the case that APs can be equipped with different number of access radios and clients can have different data rates depending on the signal strength it can receive from an AP.developing algorithms for placing minimal number of gateway in a connected subgraph, such that clients QoS requirements (bandwidth and delay) can be met. We consider system-wide interference when computing effective capacity of links in the network.developing algorithms for placing minimal number of MRs to interconnect a set of disconnected small subgraphs into adequate sizes such that each of them can be served by one gateway subject to clients QoS requirements. The objective is to maximize the cost saving, which is defined as the cost of reduced gateways minus the cost of added MRs (note: initially each disconnected subgraph requires a gateway).The project has great significance of both academic research and industrial applications. The output of the project includes high quality research publications, algorithms and software for solving the optimal placement problems, and training of PhD students.