An Active Constraint Method for Distributed Routing, and Power Control in Wireless Networks

Efficiently transmitting data in wireless networks requires joint optimization of routing, scheduling, and power control. As opposed to the universal dual decomposition we present a method that solves this optimization problem by fully exploiting our knowledge of active constraints. The method still maintains main requirements such as optimality, distributed implementation, multiple path routing and per-hop error performance. To reduce the complexity of the whole problem, we separate scheduling from routing and power control, including it instead in the constraint set of the joint optimization problem. Apart from the mathematical framework we introduce a routing and power control decomposition algorithm that uses the active constraint method, and we give further details on its distributed application. For verification, we apply the distributed RPCD algorithm to examples of wireless mesh backhaul networks with fixed nodes. Impressive convergence results indicate that the distributed RPCD algorithm calculates the optimum solution in one decomposition step only.