Maximum-Rate Node Selection for Power-Limited Multiantenna Relay Backbones

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are envisioned for extending the coverage of WLANs by interconnecting the underlying Access Points (APs) via high-capacity wireless backbones. Since the ultimate goal of a WMN is to provide Internet connectivity to residential clients, WMN traffic is mainly routed over the backbone either toward the Internet GateWays (IGWs) or from the IGWs to the APs. In principle, the transport capacity of a WMN can further be upgraded by equipping the underlying backbone routers with MultiAntenna (MA) radio modules. Motivated by the above consideration, in this paper, the authors focus on the optimized node selection (e.g., path-routing) over MA mesh backbones when the target is to maximize the end-to-end routed information rate subject to a constraint on the total power available for the relays.