Towards Efficient Use of Radio Resources in Single Channel Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper, we address the radio resource utilization efficiency in single channel wireless mesh networks (WMNs) while considering the mobility of users and when multiple simultaneous connections on the same channel exist in the network. To achieve this, we use clustering. We first identify through analytical models and simulations the cases where clustering is helpful. Building on these results, we propose two clustering schemes that take into consideration the mobility properties of users in order to improve the WMN performance. We prove that both schemes can achieve significant gains in terms of radio resource utilization, especially when the number of simultaneous connections in the network increases. Specifically, we show that the first scheme fits better low-connected wireless mesh networks, whereas the second scheme is more suitable for highly-connected networks.