SDN-based channel assignment algorithm for interference management in dense Wi-Fi networks

Abstract

The popularity of Wi-Fi-enabled devices alongside the growing demand for non-licensed spectrum, has made the Wi-Fi networks exceedingly congested. This endangers the efficiency of Wi-Fi and negatively affect the users' experience. The problem is especially pressing in dense areas (e.g. shopping centers) where Wi-Fi channel assignment is more likely to be uncoordinated and the working environment of Wi-Fi Access Points (APs) has become increasingly time-variant. As a result, the availability of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and network virtualization technologies has motivated the use of centralized resource management as a solution. This paper provides an algorithm for channel assignment functionality in the context of SDN-based centralized resource management, which captures the live status of a Wi-Fi network and is capable of optimising the Radio Frequency (RF) channel assignment process. The APs' network arrangement, the current assignment of the channels and the characteristics of the RF channels in IEEE 802.11 have all been taken into account in the proposed model. The performance of the proposed model in terms of the level of the interference, the spectral efficiency at each AP and the Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) at the user-side is evaluated through simulation and compared against state of the art solutions.