MAC-aware routing metric for 802.11 wireless mesh networks

Abstract

We develop a new wireless link quality metric, ECOT (Estimated Channel Occupancy Time) that enables a high throughput route setup in wireless mesh networks. The key feature of ECOT is being applicable to diverse mesh network environments where IEEE 802.11 MAC (Medium Access Control) variants are used. We take into account the detailed operational features of various 802.11 MAC protocols, such as 802.11 DCF (Distributed Coordination Function), 802.11e EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Channel Access) with BACK (Block Acknowledgment), and 802.11n A-MPDU (Aggregate MAC Protocol Data Unit), and derive an integrated link metric that enables finding maximum throughput end-to-end routes. Through simulations in randomized topological environments, we evaluate the performance of the proposed link metric and routing strategy to demonstrate that our proposed schemes can achieve up to 354.4% throughput gain over existing ones.

Comparison of routing metrics in 802.11n wireless mesh networks

“…RELATED WORK Several link quality-based routing metrics have been proposed over the past decade both for single-channel [10], [17], [1], [28] and multi-channel networks [11], [29]. All these metrics have been designed assuming a legacy 802.11a/b/g underlying MAC layer and have only been evaluated over 802.11a/b/g WMNs.…”

“…The only metric that takes into account some of the new characteristics introduced by the 802.11n standard (MAC/PHY overhead, FA) is the ECOT metric [28], which is calculated as the expected time occupancy during which a data frame or a group of data frames is transmitted over the expected number of successfully transmitted data frames at a unit transmission attempt. However, ECOT was only evaluated in ns2 over an 802.11g PHY layer.…”

An Experimental Study of Routing Metrics in 802.11n Wireless Mesh Networks

“…Several link quality-based routing metrics have been proposed over the past decade both for single-channel [1], [9], [20], [35] and multi-channel networks [10], [36]. All these metrics have been designed assuming a legacy 802.11a/b/g underlying MAC layer and have only been evaluated over 802.11a/b/g WMNs.…”

“…The only metric that takes into account some of the new characteristics introduced by the 802.11n standard (MAC/PHY overhead, FA) is the ECOT metric [35], which is calculated as the expected time occupancy during which a data frame or a group of data frames is transmitted over the expected number of successfully transmitted data frames at a unit transmission attempt. However, ECOT was only evaluated in ns2 over an 802.11g PHY layer.…”

An Available Transmission Time Routing Metric for Wireless Ad-Hoc Sensor Networks

“…Test results show that ETT is better than ETX. Reference [11] studies the MAC-aware link quality metrics and proposes a new wireless link quality metric of estimated channel occupancy Time (ECOT) which focus on improving network throughput.…”