SINR-sensitive routing in wireless 802.11 mesh networks

Despite the many routing protocols to choose from in the existing wireless network literature, routing has remained a challenging problem in the actual deployment of wireless mesh and ad hoc networks. To address some of the issues involved with routing in wireless mesh networks, in this paper we attempt to make routing more sensitive to the dynamics of the network such as interference, traffic load and congestion. We introduce a link/load-sensitive metric using linkspsila idle time and average Signal to Interference Noise Ratio (SINR), as perceived by receiving nodes into link/path selection. We use this quantity as a secondary link metric to prevent instability that might happen due to frequent SINR variations. We therefore attempt to introduce better load balancing critical to mesh networks as the nodes closer to the base stations tend to be the natural bottlenecks of the network. We perform a simulation study to assess the performance enhancement due to this technique under different load conditions. We use ETX as primary link metric and observe throughput enhancement when a secondary SINR-based metric is incorporated in the link metric.