Performance Comparison of Weather Disruption-Tolerant Cross-Layer Routing Algorithms

With growing demand for high-speed access to mobile handheld devices, there is a significant cost benefit in deploying fixed wireless-mesh networks for backhaul access. However, enabling reliable broadband access over high-frequency radios (such as millimeter-wave networks) posses a fundamental challenge due to weather disruptions in general and rain attenuation in particular. In this paper, we present an analysis of the impact of precipitation on millimeter-wave mesh networks based on radar measurements of real storms in the Midwest US. Furthermore, we compare two novel algorithms that use physical-layer information to optimize routing at the network layer: P-WARP (Predictive Weather-Assisted Routing Protocol) and XL-OSPF (Cross-Layered Open Shortest Path First). Finally, we present simulation studies to compare the performance of the proposed protocols and evaluate the dependability of the end-user service during weather disruptions.