Totally Disjoint Multipath Routing in Multihop Wireless Networks

Spreading traffic over multiple paths has been shown to enhance network performance compared to single path routing. However, the route coupling effect specific to wireless environments (consequent to the shared transmission medium) can significantly reduce the benefits of such an approach. In this paper, we focus on the 2-path routing problem in a non-mobile and non energy-constrained network. We evaluate the network performance and the effect of interference in a single source-destination pair scenario and for multiple source-destinations pairs. In the former case, we provide an analytical evaluation of the throughput and propose a position-based algorithm to iteratively find a path between a source and a destination. In the latter case, we demonstrate how interference can significantly degrade the nominal network capacity and void the benefits of multipath routing.