Superposition Coding for Wireless Mesh Networks

A major barrier for the adoption of wireless mesh networks is severe limits on throughput. In this paper, we design a new wireless mesh network architecture based on superposition coding to substantially improve network capacity in large, dense wireless mesh networks. Superposition coding is a physical layer technique that allows a transmitter to simultaneously send different packets to multiple receivers. While superposition coding has been studied extensively by the physical layer community, we present the first design of practical and effective MAC and routing protocols to take advantage of superposition coding in wireless mesh networks. Extensive evaluations show that superposition coding can be a practical method to increase the throughput of large, dense wireless mesh networks. Specifically, in a mesh network with 2 to 64 active receivers and one gateway, we show that our system can increase throughput up to 28.3%, with average gain ranging from 15% to 51%. When there are multiple gateways, out system gains up to 150% to 190%, with average gain ranging from 31% to 79%. These results clearly demonstrate the potential benefits of our system. We also present a prototype implementation using GNU Radio.