Flexibility of Routing Framework Architecture in IEEE 802.11s Mesh Networks

The fundamental challenges in wireless multihop networks design are the problems of routing and hidden stations. Defining mesh networking, IEEE 802.11s amendment addresses both issues. It includes a routing protocol and novel deterministic channel access method, called MCCA, complementing random access traditional in IEEE 802.11 networks. The routing framework architecture allows extending or even replacing the default routing protocol for specific niche application, but it is not flexible enough to take advantage of using both traditional random access and novel deterministic access, as we show in this paper. Proposed flexibility enhancements are illustrated to bring benefits for the network performance.