Channel Assignment Mechanism for Multiple APs Cochannel Deployment in High Density WLANs

Abstract

In Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), cochannel deployment can bound channel access delay and improve network capacity due to mitigating the collision and interference among different Access Points (APs). In this paper, we present a network model and an interference model for multiple APs cochannel deployment and propose a channel assignment mechanism which formulates the channel assignment problem into a time slot allocation problem. Meanwhile, we assign the channel based on the vertex coloring algorithm and make extra polls by utilizing the time slot reservation strategy to improve the channel assignment. Furthermore, we optimize the polling list of APs through classifying the clients to improve the channel utilization. The simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can improve the performance in terms of network throughput, transmission delay, and packet loss rate compared with the DCF (Distributed Coordination Function) and TMCA algorithms.