Scott’s Weblog

The Real Gain of Cross-Layer Routing in Wireless Mesh Networks

August 3rd, 2006

http://www.citeulike.org/user/scottr/article/761662

Iannone et al present a wireless mesh network architecture made up of off-the-shelf components which is self organising and makes the backbone network transparent to the clients - that is, clients from the mesh routers all appear on the same layer 2 network. The network is completely IPv6 based, and makes use of its auto-configuration features. Links between routers are made using 802.11a, and clients connect to the routers using 802.11b, separating the two logical networks physically.
The purpose of the paper is to show that cross-layer information can be used to increase performance. As a base case, the routing protocol uses a simple hop-count metric. It is shown that as the hop count increases, performance decreases. A simple cross-layer metric is introduced which finds a path with the highest bitrate. Use of the cross-layer aware routing protocol shows increases in flow performance.
While this paper is targetted at using cross-layer techniques in routing protocols, it helps to motivate the use of cross-layer techniques in general.

Entry Filed under: Literature Review, Ph.D