Ripple: a wireless token-passing protocol for multi-hop wireless mesh networks

This work presents a wireless token-passing protocol, named Ripple, for wireless mesh networks (WMNs). In contrast to existing random-access approaches, Ripple uses a decentralized controlled-access approach to protect nodes from unintentional packet collisions and maximize the spatial reuse. The performance of Ripple under an error-free wireless channel was investigated and the accuracy of the analysis was verified by simulation. Simulation results also indicated that Ripple achieved throughput, stability, and QoS enhancement than that of 802.11 DCF under a highly loaded situation.