Challenges and recent advances in QoS provisioning in wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) comprising of mobile and static nodes connected wirelessly are emerging as a key technology for future generation of wireless networks. WMNs self-organize, self-configure and self-heal themselves and can increase the coverage of conventional infrastructure-based wireless LANs and MANs without significant additional infrastructure deployments. Due to these unique features, WMNs are being used in many applications ranging from emergency response situations to wireless metropolitan area networks. Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning in WMNs is of utmost importance in order to support real-time audio and video communications. However, QoS provisioning in highly mobile wireless networks such as WMNs is a very challenging problem compared to provisioning of QoS in wired IP networks. The main reasons for this are unpredictable node mobility, wireless multi-hop communication, contention for wireless channel access, limited battery power and wireless range of mobile devices, as well as the absence of a central coordination authority in WMNs. This paper describes the challenges and the state of the art in provisioning of QoS over WMNs.