Challenges and Issues in Designing Architectures and Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is a promising wireless technology for several emerging and commercially interesting applications, e.g., broadband home networking, community and neighborhood networks, coordinated network management, intelligent transportation systems. It is gaining significant attention as a possible way for Internet service providers (ISPs) and other endusers to establish robust and reliable wireless broadband service access at a reasonable cost. WMNs consist of mesh routers and mesh clients as shown in Fig. 1. In this architecture, while static mesh routers form the wireless backbone, mesh clients access the network through mesh routers as well as directly meshing with each other. Different from traditional wireless networks, WMN is dynamically selforganized and self-configured. In other words, the nodes in the mesh network automatically establish and maintain network connectivity. This feature brings many advantages for the end-users, such as low up-front cost, easy network maintenance, robustness, and reliable service coverage. In addition, with the use of advanced radio technologies, e.g., multiple radio interfaces and smart antennas, network capacity in WMNs is increased significantly. Moreover, the gateway and bridge functionalities in mesh routers enable the integration of wireless mesh networks with various existing wireless networks, such as wireless sensor networks, wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi), and WiMAX [3]. Consequently, through an integrated wireless mesh network, the end-users can take the advantage of multiple wireless networks. Some of the benefits and characteristics of wireless mesh networks are highlighted as follows: