LPBT: An energy-aware link quality metric for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have generated a lot of enthusiasm over the last decade or so, both in research and implementations. However, they are yet to reach their full potential and deliver on the promise of ubiquitous high-speed Internet access, due to a number of real world limitations. As such, the current research focus is shifting towards understanding the ground realities of building a high-performing WMN and finding solutions to any shortcomings. The success of these attempts has the potential to propel the popularity of WMNs to a whole new level. However, with increasing popularity, energy efficiency also becomes a major consideration for WMN design, not only to facilitate power-constrained usages, but also to be proactive in energy conservation as a whole. The existing research in WMNs considers energy-efficiency as an after-thought at best, especially since existing criteria and metrics are not being designed with energy-efficiency in mind. In this paper, we present a new energy-aware link quality metric that could be used at the initial configuration of a WMN to increase the average throughput, while reducing the power consumption. We validate our design strategy with a detailed measurement study performed on a mesh network testbed. We show that in addition to increasing the throughput and reducing the power consumption, we can increase the connectivity of the network by using this link quality metric.