Low-Latency Broadcast in Multirate Wireless Mesh Networks

Special Issue on “Multi-Hop Wireless Mesh Networks”</p

Mobile Ad hoc Networking: Imperatives and Challenges

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self-organize into arbitrary and temporary, "ad-hoc" network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internetwork in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyperlan are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of this dynamic field. It first explains the important role that mobile ad hoc networks play in the evolution of future wireless technologies. Then, it reviews the latest research activities in these areas, including a summary of MANET\u27s characteristics, capabilities, applications, and design constraints. The paper concludes by presenting a set of challenges and problems requiring further research in the future

Mesh based and Hybrid Multicast routing protocols for MANETs: Current State of the art

This paper discusses various multicast routing protocols which are proposed in the recent past each having its own unique characteristic, with a motive of providing a complete understanding of these multicast routing protocols and present the scope of future research in this field. Further, the paper specifically discusses the current development in the development of mesh based and hybrid multicasting routing protocols. The study of this paper addresses the solution of most difficult task in Multicast routing protocols for MANETs under host mobility which causes multi-hop routing which is even more severe with bandwidth limitations. The Multicast routing plays a substantial part in MANETs

Maximizing Broadcast and Multicast Traffic Load through Link-Rate Diversity in Wireless Mesh Networks

This paper studies some of the fundamental challenges and opportunities associated with the network-layer broadcast and multicast in a multihop multirate wireless mesh network (WMN). In particular, we focus on exploiting the ability of nodes to perform link-layer broadcasts at different rates (with correspondingly different coverage areas). We first show how, in the broadcast wireless medium, the available capacity at a mesh node for a multicast transmission is not just a function of the aggregate pre-existing traffic load of other interfering nodes, but intricately coupled to the actual (sender, receiver) set and the link-layer rate of each individual transmission. We then present and study four alternative heuristic strategies for computing a broadcast tree that not only factors in a flow’s traffic rate but also exploits the wireless broadcast advantage (WBA). Finally, we demonstrate how our insights can be extended to multicast routing in a WMN, and present results that show how a tree-formation algorithm that combines contention awareness with transmission rate diversity can significantly increase the total amount of admissible multicast traffic load in a WMN.

High-Performance Broadcast and Multicast Protocols for Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks

Recently, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have attracted much attention. A vast amount of unicast, multicast and broadcast protocols has been developed for WMNs or mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). First of all, broadcast and multicast in wireless networks are fundamentally different from the way in which wired networks function due to the well-known wireless broadcast/multicast advantage. Moreover, most broadcast and multicast protocols in wireless networks assume a single-radio single-channel and single-rate network model, or a generalized physical model, which does not take into account the impact of interference. This dissertation focuses on high-performance broadcast and multicast protocols designed for multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) WMNs. MRMC increases the capacity of the network from different aspects. Multi-radio allows mesh nodes to simultaneously send and receive through different radios to its neighbors. Multi-channel allows channels to be reused across the network, which expands the available spectrum and reduces the interference. Unlike MANETs, WMNs are assumed to be static or with minimal mobility. Therefore, the main design goal in WMNs is to achieve high throughput rather than to maintain connectivity. The capacity of WMNs is constrained by the interference caused by the neighbor nodes. One direct design objective is to minimize or reduce the interference in broadcast and multicast. This dissertation presents a set of broadcast and multicast protocols and mathematical formulations to achieve the design goal in MRMC WMNs. First, the broadcast problem is addressed with full consideration of both inter-node and intra-node interference to achieve efficient broadcast. The interference-aware broadcast protocol simultaneously achieves full reliability, minimum broadcast or multicast latency, minimum redundant transmissions, and high throughput. With an MRMC WMN model, new link and channel quality metrics are defined and are suitable for the design of broadcast and multicast protocols. Second, the minimum cost broadcast problem (MCBP), or minimum number of transmissions problem, is studied for MRMC WMNs. Minimum cost broadcast potentially allows more effective and efficient schedule algorithms to be designed. The proposed protocol with joint consideration of channel assignment reduces the interference to improve the throughput in the MCBP. Minimum cost broadcast in MRMC WMNs is very different from that in the single radio single channel scenario. The channel assignment in MRMC WMNs is used to assign multiple radios of every node to different channels. It determines the actual network connectivity since adjacent nodes have to be assigned to a common channel. Transmission on different channels makes different groups of neighboring nodes, and leads to different interference. Moreover, the selection of channels by the forward nodes impacts on the number of radios needed for broadcasting. Finally, the interference optimization multicast problem in WMNs with directional antennas is discussed. Directional transmissions can greatly reduce radio interference and increase spatial reuse. The interference with directional transmissions is defined for multicast algorithm design. Multicast routing found by the interference-aware algorithm tends to have fewer channel collisions. The research work presented in this dissertation concludes that (1) new and practical link and channel metrics are required for designing broadcast and multicast in MRMC WMNs; (2) a small number of radios is sufficient to significantly improve throughput of broadcast and multicast in WMNs; (3) the number of channels has more impact on almost all performance metrics, such as the throughput, the number of transmission, and interference, in WMNs

Power-efficient multicasting algorithms for wireless ad hoc networks

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

Advances and challenges with data broadcasting in wireless mesh networks

Special Issue on “Wireless Mesh Networks”</p

Low Latency Multimedia Broadcast in Multi-rate Wireless Meshes

Abstract — In a multi-rate wireless network, a node can dynamically adjust its link transmission rate by switching between different modulation schemes. For the current IEEE802.11a/b/g standards, this rate adjustment is limited to unicast traffic only while multicast and broadcast traffic is always transmitted at the lowest possible rate. In this paper, we consider a novel type of multi-rate mesh networks where a node can dynamically adjust its link layer multicast rates to its neighbours. In particular, we consider the problem of realising low latency network-wide broadcast in this type of multi-rate wireless meshes. We will first show that the multi-rate broadcast problem is significantly different from the single-rate case. We will then present an algorithm for achieving low latency broadcast in a multi-rate mesh which exploits both wireless broadcast advantage and the multi-rate nature of the network. I