Performance and comparative analysis of design schemes for prioritised data in multi-hop Wireless Mesh backbone networks

The contention based carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) was originally designed for single-hop networks. For CSMA/CA to be used in multi-hop distributed networks and to provide guaranteed data priority, the CSMA/CA needs to be optimised. An application is the smart grid consisting of different network domains with data of different priority levels. The IEEE802.11e standard was developed to provide differentiated data services. With the default enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) settings for QoS, an unfairness problem exists for different data classes where higher priority data can starve lower priority data and also where bandwidth is allocated unfairly. In this paper, we carry out an investigation of six design schemes for wireless backbone networks for QoS provisioning of different data priority classes. The design schemes are based on the concept of low-cost design for suitability in rural areas where cost plays a major role. The simulation results were obtained using OMNET++ and the INET framework. The performance metrics used for the analysis were end-to-end latency, packet loss percentage and Jain´s fairness index. Simulation results show that hybrid network designs using distributed coordination function (DCF) and EDCA can improve QoS in terms of reliability and fairness.