A Scalable Link Quality Routing Protocol for Multi-radio Wireless Mesh Networks

Due to their installation and management simplicity, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have become a natural way to deliver wireless coverage for local, campus and metropolitan areas. In order to provide backhaul support, it is necessary to enhance the capacity of WMNs. In this paper, a scalable link quality routing protocol for multi-radio WMNs is proposed. We incorporate a local link quality metric and multi-radio support in the OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing) protocol. This simple and scalable approach helps to find shortest paths with better quality. Simulations were conducted and the results showed expressive performance improvements of the proposed protocol over the original OLSR, with a minimum overhead increase. Algorithms, Communication system routing, Computer network performance, Wireless Mesh Networks.