Fuzzy logic based link status classification for efficient multipath routing in multi-hop wireless mesh networks

In contrast to traditional wireless networks, hosts of a multi-hop wireless network, like wireless mesh network (WMN), may rely on each other to maintain network connectivity. A main design objective of these networks is to eliminate or minimize the unavailability of network at some point. However, in infrastructure and the client part of WMN movement of nodes still creates delay as path failure detection and re-establishment consumes considerable time. Existing solutions for link classification operate on discrete values resulting in performance degradation. This problem can best be modelled through fuzzy logic based classification that is based on continuous values. This paper presents a new fuzzy logic based link status classification mechanism for use with multipath routing protocols in multi-hop wireless networks like WMNs. The proposed mechanism classifies the link status as active, about-to-break or broken. On the basis of link status, said algorithm predicts in advance that a particular link, on the active path between sender and receiver, is about to break and helps the reactive multipath routing protocol to start the rerouting operation, thus minimizing the route discovery frequency, delay and packet loss.