The reliability performance of wireless multi-hop networks with apparent link-failures

The links in an ad hoc or wireless mesh network are normally kept alive by the exchange of beacons between neighboring nodes. These beacons are prone to collisions with traffic from hidden nodes. If several beacons are lost due to overlapping transmissions, the node expecting the beacons erroneously assumes that the link is down. This is called an apparent link-failure. This paper provides an analytical model of the apparent link-failure probability in a wireless mesh network. In addition, an upper and lower bound for the model is presented and applied in a reliability analysis of wireless mesh networks.