Routing with uncertainty in wireless mesh networks

Existing routing protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are generally optimized with statistical link measures, while not addressing on the intrinsic uncertainty of wireless links. We show evidence that, with the transient link uncertainties at PHY and MAC layers, a pseudo-deterministic routing protocol that relies on average or historic statistics can hardly explore the full potentials of a multi-hop wireless mesh. We study optimal WMN routing using probing-based online anypath forwarding, with explicit consideration of transient link uncertainties. We show the underlying connection between WMN routing and the classic Canadian Traveller Problem (CTP). Inspired by a stochastic recoverable version of CTP (SRCTP), we develop a practical SRCTP-based online routing algorithm under link uncertainties. We study how dynamic next hop selection can be done with low cost, and derive a systematic selection order for minimizing transmission delay. We conduct simulation studies to verify the effectiveness of the SRCTP algorithms under diverse network configurations. In particular, compared to deterministic routing, reduction of end-to-end delay (51.15~73.02%) and improvement on packet delivery ratio (99.76%) are observed.