Multi-Linked AODV Routing Protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks

Nodes in multi-hop wireless networks, and specifically in ad-hoc and mesh networks, are being increasingly equipped with multiple wireless network interfaces (radios) operating on orthogonal channels to achieve better utilisation of the frequency spectrum. In addition to reducing interference via increased channel diversity, these additional interfaces can be used to create multiple concurrent links between adjacent nodes, i.e. nodes within single-hop range of each other. Information about the availability of multiple links between nodes provides the opportunity to increase the overall performance of the network by optimally balancing traffic between the set of available inter- node links. In this paper, we present extensions to the well known Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol with the aim to discover and exploit multiple links in Wireless Mesh Networks. As demonstrated via extensive simulations, Multi-Link AODV (AODV-ML) achieves a more than 100% improvement over standard multi-radio AODV in terms of key performance metrics such as packet delivery ratio, latency and routing overhead.