Unit - 2

WIRELESS MESH
NETWORKS
 Introduction

Providing broadband access to anyone anywhere in the world is a

challenge to today’s networking market.
Wired connections may not be the appropriate solution in terms of cost,
setup, software and hardware beside the disadvantage of immobility of
clients.
The wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are introduced to provide the wide
scale connectivity with lower cost than the wired network.
In addition to the cost advantage, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are
easy to maintain, robust and provide reliable service coverage.
Also, it can be deployed in difficult terrain where a wire line network is
difficult to be deployed.
The decreasing cost of the wireless interface cards has strongly pushed the
development and spread of wireless mesh networks.
Wireless mesh network (WMN) is a network which uses
multiple hops to send packets between source and destination.
Wireless mesh network is a network which comprises various
wireless nodes with access points.
 Each node in the network acts as a forwarding node to transfer
the data.
Since the network is decentralized, forwarding of data is
possible only to the neighboring node.
This results in the network structure simple and easy.
WMN makes the people connected with the Internet who work
at remote areas and operating business.
 WMNs are capable of maintaining mesh connectivity and have tendency of self-
healing thus making network adaptable when nodes are deleted or added.
 Through gateways WMNs are imagined to be compatible with existing
technologies such as wired and wireless networks.
 WMN’s comprises of Mesh routers and Mesh clients.
A. MESH ROUTER
 The nodes are one of the essential components of WMN. Since mesh routers
are considered as backbone of WMN and helps in transferring packets to and
from clients using multi-hop technology in order to cover larger areas with less
cost.
B. MESH CLIENTS
 Mesh clients lack gateway bridge functionality but they can act as a router and
they are considered as mobile or stationary/end user devices. For example
laptop, desktop, smart phones etc.
 Architecture of WMN

Wireless mesh network is the architecture which provides less mobility with
low cost within a radio range.
WMN is an infrastructure which is a network of routers minus cabling
between the nodes.
It consists of radio nodes which need not to be cabled to a wired port like the
conventional wireless access points.
Shortest hops are predicted to transmit the data toward large distance.
Nodes between the source and destination act as a forwarding node which
works cooperatively in making decisions in route prediction based on the
topology and forwarding the data.
Wireless mesh network provides stability when compared to the rest of the
network topologies rather than the node addition or deletion in the network.
In infrastructure mesh network, the data forwarding and receiving are via
gateway, whereas in the rest of the network, it is through pair of nodes
Wireless mesh networks are categorized into three types
based on the functionality of the nodes in the network:
 Infrastructure mesh architecture
 Mesh architecture based on clients
 Hybrid mesh architecture
 Infrastructure mesh architecture

In this type, different nodes (routers/clients) are connected to form network.
Mesh router act as infrastructure/backbone which establishes communication
among clients.
Directional antennas are used which provides long range communication.
Different types of radio technologies exist among them one is backbone
communication which is found in mesh routers and another used for user
communication.
Self-organizing and self-healing capability is found in backbone network.
Simple architecture is its advantage but the network becomes inconsistent
due to lack of network scalability and high resource constraints.
If the conventional clients as well as the mesh routers have the same radio
technology then direct communication is possible between them, but if they
have different radio technologies then primarily communication of clients is
with the base stations that have Ethernet connections to mesh routers.
Figure: Mesh architecture for infrastructure-based
network
 Mesh architecture based on clients

Client meshing is one of the essential feature through which peer to peer networks is possible
between clients, In addition to end-user applications to customers it also provides routing
functions.
The clients are also responsible for uphold the network connectivity. Mesh clients are same
as conventional ad-hoc network as they lack central infrastructure which is required for
networking functions.
Mesh routers are not required for performing these types of functions because they work
separately inside the group.
Multiple nodes are being used for packet delivery from source to destination. Only one type
of radio is used for the formation of client WMNs.
In addition mesh client also provides other functions e.g. self-configuration and routing
which are more confined than infrastructure meshing.
Each node can act as a routing node to transfer the data.
Here, the client performs the role of mesh routing by acting in the forwarding of the data
packets.
In this, the network with no router is connected to it and rather all clients are interconnected
to perform data transfer.
Figure: Mesh architecture based on clients
 Hybrid mesh architecture

In hybrid mesh architecture, usually the mesh nodes/router acts as a

back bone of the entire network operation.
With the help of network mesh router, it performs routing and
forwarding of data packets toward its destination.
Hybrid network is better than infrastructure and client network as it
is formed by the combination of the above two networks .
Through mesh routers, mesh clients cannot only access the network
but can do also direct meshing between clients. While
infrastructure network establish communication between different
networks e.g. Wi-Fi, Wi-MAX, cellular and sensor networks,
which results in improved connectivity and large coverage areas
within the WMN.
Figure: Hybrid mesh architecture
 Characteristics of wireless mesh networks

Dynamic self-configuration and self-organization

Adaptation
Fault tolerance and robustness
Low-cost
Integration and interoperability
 Management

The infrastructure-based wireless mesh network is a decentralized

network without a centralized management or with no centralized
server which is more expensive.
These methods are more reliable and efficient as each node has to
transmit to the next node.
Here, nodes act as router to transmit the data to its peers which are
located far even it is a single hop.
Wireless mesh network should be stable, i.e., there should not be
high mobility.
If node failure occurs due to any hardware problem or any other, the
neighbor node will perform rerouting with the help of routing
protocols.
 Applications

Mesh network may comprise of mobile devices or stationary devices.

Some of the applications of mesh networks which deserve
communication are:
 Battlefield surveillance
 Tunnels
 Mobile video applications
 Emergency situations
 Real time car racing
 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) etc.
Military forces in the USA are using wireless mesh networks to connect
their devices for field operations.
In residences, electric smart meters have been implemented to transfer
the reading from one point to another (say as, from home to centralized
office) to eliminate the man power.
From 2010 onward, Wi-Fi-enabled mesh routers are available in the
market which is installable even in homes or at small workplace.
Google Home, Google on Hub, and Google Wi-Fi are various Wi-Fi
wireless mesh networks.
Iridium constellation with 66 satellites works under mesh network.
This topology connects various wireless links with other satellite.
Voice calls can be communicated via mesh networks between one
satellite and another across constellations without transferring the
signal to the ground station.
Latency is highly reduced by avoiding the signal transfer to the
nearby mesh instead of transferring to ground station.
Google Wi-Fi: https://youtu.be/XaOcjHrdMFE
 Operation

The working principle of wireless mesh network is the same as that

of the packets that travel around the wired internet data transfer
between one node and another toward the destination.
This is implemented with the help of dynamic routing algorithm. It
is possible by making each node communicate its routing
information to other nodes within the network.
With the received information, each node will decide whether to
forward or to keep the data for itself. It is based on the functionality
of the routing protocol.
It is necessary for any routing algorithm to ensure that routing is
done by predicting the shortest path between the source and
destination. 
Architecture of wireless mesh network
Wireless mesh network can be connected with the existing network to provide
effective communication.
In traditional network comprises of various wired nodes, hotspots to communicate
with the users, whereas in wireless mesh networks, the network is established with
the help of various numbers of wireless nodes to communicate with each other.
The wireless nodes used in wireless mesh networks play same role as wireless
routers.
Various Wi-Fi communication IEEE standards like IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, and
802.11 g are used for wireless mesh communication.
Nodes in the network are capable of predicting the shortest path from the available
path between source and destination.
Addition and deletion of nodes and the routes will be updated then and there
whenever there is a change in the network infrastructure.
Dynamic routing is the capability of the node to predict the shortest available path
between source and destination
 Advantages

The cost of designing the network is lesser for fewer

numbers of nodes even for large network coverage.
Wireless mesh network shows better performance even
for large number of nodes in the network.
Wireless mesh networks relay on various Wi-Fi standards.
It is useful for Non-line-of-sight (NLoS) network.
It is self-configuring and self-healing.
Easy to install and uninstall which makes network more
adaptable with less or more number of nodes.
 Design Challenges
 Advanced Wireless Radio Technologies: Recently, many solutions have been proposed to improve
the capacity of WMNs. Typical examples, include reconfigurable radios, frequency agile/cognitive
radios, directional and smart antennas, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems, and multi-
radio and multi-channel systems. However, the complexity and the cost of these technologies are still
too high to be widely accepted for the commercialization. Therefore, all these advanced wireless radio
technologies require a revolutionary design in the communication protocol suite in order to facilitate
the deployment of WMNs and the commercialization of the products.
 Interoperability and Integration of Heterogeneous Networks: Existing networking technologies
have limited capabilities of integrating different wireless networks. Thus, to increase the performance
of WMNs and to provide the interoperability between the products from different manufacturers, the
integration capabilities of multiple wireless interfaces and the corresponding gateway/bridge
functions of network routers should be improved.
 Network Security: Denial of service attacks and intrusions in WMNs can cause severe damage to the
operation of the deployed network. Although there exist many security schemes proposed for wireless
local area networks and ad hoc networks, most of these security solutions are either not practical or
showing poor performance in WMNs because of the lack of a centralized trusted authority to
distribute a public key in the WMN architecture. Consequently, there is a need for new security
schemes ranging from efficient encryption and authentication mechanisms to secure key distributions,
and intrusion detection mechanisms.
 Scalability: The deployed mesh network must be able to deal with large network topologies without
increasing the number of network operations exponentially. In addition, the network performance
should not degrade as the number of hops between the sender and the receiver increases. To provide
the scalability in WMNs, there is a need for scalable MAC, routing and transport layer protocols with
 Heterogeneous Quality of Service (QoS) Requirements: The network services that are provided by
WMNs vary from reliable file transfer to real-time multimedia, such as live video streaming. Thus, in
addition to traditional network throughput and communication latency metrics, more comprehensive
performance metrics, such as delay jitter, aggregate and per-node fairness, and packet loss ratios, need
to be considered by the developed mechanisms.
 Dynamic Network Connectivity and Self-Configuration: In WMNs, to eliminate the single point
failures and potential bottleneck links, the wireless backbone needs to provide redundant paths
between the sender and the receiver, i.e. mesh connectivity. However, the topology and connectivity of
the network can vary frequently because of the route failures and energy depletions . Therefore, to take
all the advantages of autonomous mesh connectivity, efficient network self-configuration, topology
control and power management algorithms are required.
 Mobility Support: To support mobile mesh clients in WMNs, it is necessary to design advanced
physical layer and networking techniques, which adapt to the fast fading conditions commonly
associated with the mobile users. In addition to these advanced techniques, low latency handover and
location management algorithms are also required to improve the quality of service during mobility.
 Network Management Tools: To monitor the overall network performance and maintain the network
operation, flexible and scalable network management capabilities are required for WMNs. The primary
network management capabilities of the WMNs include: i) bandwidth provisioning, ii) installing
security and quality of service policies, iii) supporting service level agreements, iv) fault identification
and resolution, v) addition and removal of network entities, vi) change of network functions, vii)
accounting, billing and reporting. All these capabilities can automate the fault-management in WMNs
and thus enable the rapid deployment of WMNs.
Factors that influence the performance of wireless mesh
networks include:
 Architecture
 Topology
 Data pattern and traffic
 Density of the nodes
 Number of channels used by the nodes in the network
 Transmission power
 Mobility of the nodes
 Physical layer

Physical layer (PHY) is the bottom layer and has an air-interface that is concerned with antennas
and radio electronic systems directly.
Various types of modulation and coding techniques are used to achieve multiple transmission
rates. Schemes such as orthogonal frequency multiple access (OFDM) and ultra-wide band
(UWB) are used to obtain high speed transmission rates.
Smart antennas are used in order to increase capacity of physical layer and to decrease the
problem of fading.
Transmission power and interference can be achieved by using directional antennas.
Challenges: Issues related to this layer are,
 mobility,

 link adaptation,
 variable transmission power,

 multiple transceivers,
 directional antennas,
 link quality feedback, and

 transceiver performance.
 MAC layer

 Responsibilities of MAC Protocol : 

 Network overhead should be low. 
 Efficiently allocate the bandwidth. 
 Distributed MAC operation. 
 Power control mechanism should be present. 
 Maximum utilization of channel. 
 Hidden and Exposed problem should be removed. 
 Nodes should be sync with time. 
 
 MAC Layer
Design issues of MAC Protocol : 
 
 Bandwidth Efficiency – 
The shortage of data transfer capacity assets in these networks requires its proficient use. To evaluate
this, we could state that 
bandwidth capacity is the proportion of the bandwidth used for data transmission to the complete
accessible bandwidth capacity. 
 
 Quality of Service Support – 
Quality of service support is difficult due to the mobility of the nodes. Once a node moves out of reach,
the reservation in it is lost. In these networks, QoS is extremely important because if it is being used in
military environments, the service support needed time to time. 
 
 Synchronization – 
Some instruments must be found so as to give synchronization among the nodes. Synchronization is
significant for directing the bandwidth reservation. 
 
 Hidden Terminal Problem – 
When there are two nodes, both are outside of each other’s range and try to communicate with same
node within their range at the same time, then there must be packet collision. 
 
 Exposed Terminal Problem – 
Uncovered nodes might be denied channel access pointlessly, which implies under usage of the
bandwidth resources. 
Hidden Vs Exposed Terminal Problem
 MAC Layer
Channel Utilization:
 In general, MAC protocols are used for single hop communication. Therefore,
MAC layer should be designed in such a way so that multipoint communication
between nodes and use of multiple physical channels is possible in a WMN.
 Wireless mesh networks, being multi-hop networks, are particularly affected by
environmental noise and interference problems, as both adjacent hops on the
same path and neighboring paths can cause interference.
 Interference can be alleviated if different node pairs in a neighborhood use
non-interfering frequency channels.
 To provide connectivity, new MAC protocols have been developed, which
enable nodes to switch their radio to a different channel when needed.
 However, such an approach presents some drawbacks for WMNs:
 Synchronization: The channel switching requires fine-grained synchronization among nodes in
order to avoid the deafness problem, i.e., the transmitter and the intended receiver may be on
different channels.
 Wasted time: The time for channel switching can be in the range of a few milliseconds to a few
hundred microseconds, which may be unacceptable for most real-time multimedia applications.

Single Hop Vs Multi Hop:

In Internet or any other IP based network packet travels from source IP device
to destination IP device through one or many networking devices (e.g. bridges,
routers, gateways etc.).

• When packet travels from source to destination using single networking device, it
is known as single hop system.
• When packet travels from source to destination using more than one networking
devices, it is known as multi hop system.
 MAC Layer
 There exist the following open research issues for the MAC layer:
 Multi-rate MAC: A channel assignment algorithm should take into
account the availability of multiple physical rates, which presents a
challenging trade-off. Indeed, reducing the physical rate decreases the
capacity of the link, but also decreases the interference range, thus
potentially allowing more simultaneous transmissions.
 Network Integration: In WMNs, mesh routers can operate in various
wireless technologies, such as IEEE 802.11(WLAN) and IEEE
802.15.4(LR-WPAN), and IEEE 802.16(WiMAX). Hence, in the MAC
layer, advanced bridging functions should be designed. In this way,
different wireless technologies can work together seamlessly. Cognitive and
reconfigurable/software radios are one of the promising solutions to these
bridging functions.
 Note: A cognitive radio is a radio that can be programmed and configured
dynamically to use the best wireless channels in its vicinity to avoid user
interference and congestion.
 Adaptivity to Network Configuration Change: In WMNs, new nodes can
 Unit - 3

MANET
Routing in MANETs
Types of Routing
Proactive Routing: DSDV
DSDV conti..
Reactive Routing: DSR
DSR conti..