Channel quality and load aware routing in wireless mesh network

Optimal routing in wireless mesh networks is a challenging problem considering inter- and intra-flow interference. To solve the problem, first, we define a new routing metric, expected path bandwidth (EPBW), where the varying link rate (due to wireless channel quality) and the dynamic link load (considering the inter- and intra-flow interference) have been considered to estimate EPBW accurately. Second, based on the proposed EPBW, we propose a distributed routing protocol for WMNs, aiming to maximize network throughput. We implement the proposed protocol and the routing metric EPBW in NS-2. We then design various scenarios to evaluate the protocol performance extensively using NS-2 simulation. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol and metric can substantially out-perform the state-of-the-art routing metrics, such as expected transmission count (ETX) and expected transmission time (ETT), and previous routing protocols including AODV, DSDV, and DSR.