A cross-layer based multipath routing protocol for IEEE 802.11E WLAN

In spite of many enhancement mechanisms are introduced to achieve QoS support in IEEE 802.11e WLAN based on Hybrid Coordination Function Controlled Channel Access (HCCA), performance evaluation results in multi-hop networks show that HCCA still suffers from significant throughput degradation and high delay at high load conditions. In this context, the route quality plays a vital role in the success of application delivery and QoS support. This paper proposes a design of a cross-layer based multipath routing protocol for IEEE 802.11e WLAN. In this proposed approach, initially multiple disjoint paths are determined. Then a total cost metric is estimated based on the Traffic Contention Time, Average Transmission Delay and Signal Fading Value. From the multiple disjoint paths, the path with minimum total cost is selected as best path and the data is transmitted through this path. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol achieves better delivery ratio and throughput with reduced delay.