Modeling Fast Link Failure Detection for Dependable Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) provide a flexible and inexpensive way to expand network applications to mobile entities. However, high communication reliability demands can not be met by regular WMNs due to mobility and inherent properties of wireless communication. Failing links are common events which impose a major challenge for providing a dependable communication service. By the use of suitable cross-layer models, we provide a timely detection of failed links without compromising the network stability. It is shown that the packet loss caused by a link failure can be reduced from a time-dependent value to at most four consecutive packets. For a typical control application this means an improvement by a factor of 100. In addition to an empirical evaluation we demonstrate the applicability of the mechanism by utilizing it in a real-world WMN to allow the tele-operation of a mobile robot.