Frequency allocation and clustering in frequency hopping ad hoc networks

With the increasing use of wireless communication devices, frequency allocation and reuse gained importance.In civilian communications systems frequency hopping is used to control interference and reuse frequency. In military communications, frequency hopping also provides immunity to signal jammers. As the security and robustness of tactical networks are extremely important, and a minimum QoS level has to be provided even in the worst case, frequency allocation becomes important. Tactical networks are usually decentralized ad hoc networks. In ad hoc networks clustering can be used to provide hierarchy and network control. Reducing interference, maintaining energy and spectral e ciency, facilitating distributed algorithms are the main uses of clustering. In this work we address the problems of clustering and frequency reuse in frequency hopped ad hoc networks. A near optimal centralized algorithm that uses global network information is proposed for frequency allocation. A distributively implementable algorithm based on local information is also proposed. As for the clustering, a centralized solution based on integer programming is proposed. We also proposed a distributively implementable near optimal algorithm for clustering. These schemes are tested in TDMA-based computer simulation environment. Numerical results reveal that the distributively implementable algorithms are close to the centralized ones, in terms of performance.