Low-Latency Multichannel Wireless Mesh Networks

Multimedia requirements of the 1990´s drove wired and optical network architects to reconsider the inefficiencies of packet switching and consider long proven methods such as circuit-switching to implement traffic engineering in order to reduce end-to-end delay. This resulted in the development of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) technologies. Because both are mature and proven technologies for wired and optical network architectures, much research has been done to apply these methods to wireless mesh networks. But optimal performance improvement eludes wireless mesh network designers because of differences between the wired/optical and wireless environments in the provision of non-interfering unidirectional internodal links and lack of a wireless circuit switch. We propose a wireless mesh networking architecture that will provide low-latency and potentially higher throughput, based upon the availability of multiple channels, a circuit-switch implemented at the physical layer, and a reservation protocol that will assign channels to provide non-interfering unidirectional internodal links.