Simulation-Based Performance Evaluation of the MLSD Protocol for Infrastructure WMNs

An Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Network (IWMN) is a multi-hop network that consists of stationary mesh routers, strategically positioned to provide a distributed wireless infrastructure for stationary or mobile mesh clients over a mesh topology. In this paper, we evaluate a network topology discovery protocol, called MLSD, which has been specifically designed considering IWMNs features. MLSD adopts a proactive, reliable, incremental, controlled and event-based delivery strategy, which avoids periodic messages and coordinates how information is propagated for enhancing efficiency and reducing network resource consumption. The performance evaluation is conducted based on simulation results. Performance is evaluated with respect to the total number of signaling messages and the signaling overhead. By contrasting MLSD and OSLR, it is observed that MLSD has the potential to become a better choice than the current project IEEE 802.11s, which adopts the OLSR approach as a basis for disseminating link state updates.