Performance Modelling and Analysis of Integrated WLANs and Internet-Access Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged as a promising and cost-effective approach to extending the coverage range of wireless local area networks (WLANs) and providing last-mile broadband Internet access. Mesh routers and mesh clients are the key components of WMNs. Mesh routers perform the dual tasks of forwarding packets as well as providing network access to mesh clients. Mesh routers facilitated with the gateway functionality can be connected to the wired infrastructure for Internet access. Traffic streams towards or from the gateway form a tree-based logical structure. In this paper, we develop a new analytical model to investigate the performance metrics including throughput and end-to-end delay in the integrated WLANs and Internet-access WMN with the tree-based logical structure. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the fact that the proposed analytical model can accurately predict the performance of the integrated network under various working conditions. By virtue of the analytical model, we can tune the system parameters and adjust the density of mesh routers at different locations so as to alleviate the bottleneck problem in the integrated WLANs and WMN.