Mesh Backbone Topology Synthesis for Multi-Radio Interconnected Wireless LANs

Wireless local area network (WLAN) systems are widely implemented today to provide hot spot coverage. Operated typically in an infrastructure mode, each WLAN is managed by an access point (AP). Wireless mesh networks are employed for the purpose of extending the wireless coverage scope of the network. We synthesize a wireless mesh backbone network that serves to interconnect the underlying AP nodes. The capability of the dynamically synthesized backbone network is further enhanced by the possible use of multiple communications bands and by the employment of multiple radio modules at more capable nodes. In this paper, we present a fully distributed multi-radio backbone synthesis algorithm (MR-BSA), which serves to construct a mesh backbone network of access points. We prove mathematically that the size of the backbone network constructed by MR-BSA is bounded by a constant, so that it is independent of the number of network nodes. We also prove that the control overhead is bounded by a constant value that is independent of the number of network nodes, and the underlying backbone synthesis algorithm converges in constant time.