Optimal Resource Allocation in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks: A Price-Based Approach

The shared-medium multi-hop nature of wireless ad hoc networks poses fundamental challenges to the design of effective resource allocation algorithms that are optimal with respect to resource utilization and fair across different network flows. None of the existing resource allocation algorithms in wireless ad hoc networks have realistically considered end-to-end flows spanning multiple hops. Moreover, strategies proposed in wireline networks are not applicable in the context of wireless ad hoc networks, due to its unique characteristics of location-dependent contention.