Interference and bandwidth adjusted ETX in wireless multi-hop networks

In this paper, we propose a new quality link metric, interference and bandwidth adjusted ETX (IBETX) for wireless multi-hop networks. As MAC layer affects the link performance and consequently the route quality, the metric therefore, tackles the issue by achieving twofold MAC-awareness. Firstly, interference is calculated using cross-layered approach by sending probes to MAC layer. Secondly, the nominal bit rate information is provided to all nodes in the same contention domain by considering the bandwidth sharing mechanism of 802.11. Like ETX, our metric also calculates link delivery ratios that directly affect throughput and selects those routes that bypass dense regions in the network. Simulation results by NS-2 show that IBETX gives 19% higher throughput than ETX and 10% higher than Expected Throughput (ETP). Our metric also succeeds to reduce average end-to-end delay up to 16% less than Expected Link Performance (ELP) and 24% less than ETX.