Topology Skewing for Improved Route Selection in Wireless Multi-hop Networks

The selection of a path in a network from one node to another is performed by a routing protocol, often using the shortest path approach. However, it has been shown that in wireless networks, the shortest path approach tends to select paths with wireless links that are only intermittently available and often unstable, resulting in extensive loss of packets in the data delivery process. Instead of taking the well-trodden approach of designing a new protocol or new routing metric, we propose a method that influences the perception of the network topology for different network nodes with the aim of presenting to the routing protocol a network topology that comprises more stable wireless links. We refer to this method as the σ-scheme (``delta´´ scheme). We implement a proof-of-concept prototype of the σ-scheme using commercial-off-the-shelf routers and demonstrate through experimentation the viability of this scheme in a realistic scenario.