Joint Scheduling and Multiflow Maximization in Wireless Networks

Towards the development of 6G mobile networks, it is promising to integrate a large number of devices from multi-dimensional platforms, and it is crucial to have a solid understanding of the theoretical limits of large-scale networks. We revisit a fundamental problem at the heart of network communication theory: the maximum multiflow (MMF) problem in multi-hop networks, with network coding performed at intermediate nodes. To derive the exact-optimal solution to the MMF problem (as opposed to approximations), conventional methods usually involve two steps: first calculate the scheduling rate region, and then find the maximum multiflow that can be supported by the achievable link rates. However, the NP-hardness of the scheduling part makes solving the MMF problem in large networks computationally prohibitive. In this paper, while still focusing on the exact-optimal solution, we provide efficient algorithms that can jointly calculate the scheduling rate region and solve the MMF problem, thereby outputting optimal values without requiring the entire scheduling rate region. We theoretically prove that our algorithms always output optimal solutions in a finite number of iterations, and we use various simulation results to demonstrate our advantages over conventional approaches. Our framework is applicable to the most general scenario in multi-source multi-sink networks: the multiple multicast problem with network coding. Moreover, by employing a graphical framework, we show that our algorithm can be extended to scenarios where propagation delays are large (e.g., underwater networks), in which recent studies have shown that the scheduling rate region can be significantly improved by utilizing such delays.