A Time-Efficient Algorithm for Optimal Design of Backbone Wireless Mesh Networks

Backbone wireless mesh networks (BWMNs) are decentralized, relatively inexpensive, and scalable networks providing broadband Internet connectivity to the metropolitan areas. In a BWMN, all traffics will flow in or out the BWMN through a gateway. However, the cost of setting up a gateway may be high such that using minimal number of gateways is desirable. In this paper, we propose the Pre-defined Gateway Set Algorithm (PGSA) to arrange the network configuration, including the gateways and the topology, subject to degree and delay constraints, such that the construction cost of the BWMN is minimized. The PGSA adopts the enhanced Dijkstra´s algorithm and genetic algorithm to achieve the goal. Constraints such as link capacity, degree limitation and maximum tolerable delay, are taken into account. The computational results show that the PGSA can give an acceptable network configuration rapidly.