Scheduling in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks With Topology and Channel-State Uncertainty

The authors study throughput-optimal scheduling/routing over mobile ad-hoc networks with time-varying (Fading) channels. Traditional back-pressure algorithms (Based on the work by Tassiulas and Ephremides) require instantaneous network state (Topology, queues-lengths, and fading channel-state) in order to make scheduling/routing decisions. However, such instantaneous network-wide (Global) information is hard to come by in practice, especially when mobility induces a time-varying topology. With information delays and a lack of global network state, different mobile nodes have differing "Views" of the network, thus inducing uncertainty and inconsistency across mobile nodes in their topology knowledge and network state information.