Optimized path selection mechanism for IEEE 802.16j Multi-Hop Relay networks

When the mobile station (MS) is far away from the base station (BS) or terrain and buildings interfere with transmission, the data rate decreases with the increased distance from the BS, and the coverage range of the BS will be shortened to only a few kilometers. The IEEE Working Group has proposed the 802.16j relay technology. This technology can be used to forward data for a BS while overcoming the signal strength attenuation. Since the cost of constructing the relay station is low, the MS will have to scan more than one signal when entering the Mobile Multi-Hop Relay (MMR) network. In this paper, we introduce a novel path selection mechanism that exploits the remaining slot and signal strength indicator (SSI). Since the signal strength will affect the Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) combination, we propose to use SSI integrated with the MCS, taking the hop count into account. We demonstrate that our proposed scheme is capable of producing an optimal path selection.