Novel power-based routing metrics for multi-channel multi-interface wireless mesh networks

In this paper the problem of selecting optimal paths in a MCMI (Multi-Channel Multi-Interface) WMN (Wireless Mesh Network) is considered. The WMNs are characterized by high dynamic range of the received signal level, especially in the indoor environment. To improve the existing routing metrics and track fast changes that occur in the link state, a corresponding parameter based on the received signal level was assigned to each link. By combining this parameter and known metrics, ETX (Expected Transmission Count), WCETT (Weighted Cumulative ETT) and MIC (Metric of Interference and Channel-switching), three new metrics were formed. All metrics were incorporated in MCR (Multi Channel Routing) protocol and an appropriate propagation model was used for simulations in a real, indoor environment. Proposed metrics, original metrics, MCR protocol, and indoor propagation model were implemented in Glomosim simulator. New metrics were compared against known metrics and also among each other in terms of throughput of user data and average end-to-end delay of the network. The results have shown that proposed metrics significantly outperform original metrics. With this approach, better network performance can be achieved without any additional hardware and with minimal software changes.