A Proposal of CSMA Fixed Backoff-time Switching Protocol and Its Implementation on QualNet Simulator for Wireless Mesh Networks

As an inexpensive and scalable Internet access network, we have studied the architecture, protocols, and design optimizations of the Wireless Internet access Mesh Network (WIMNET). WIMNET is composed of multiple access points (APs) that are connected through wireless links. Previously, we have proposed the concept of the CSMA-based Fixed Back off-time Switching (CSMA-FBS) method for WIMNET to improve the performance by giving necessary link activation chances for multi-hop communications. In this paper, we propose a protocol for this CSMA-FBS method implement able on APs, and its actual implementation on the QualNet simulator for evaluations in realistic network environments. The simulation results in two network topologies confirm the effectiveness of our proposal.