Routing in the frequency domain
The design of single transceiver based multi-channel multi-hop wireless mesh networks focuses on the trade-off between rapid neighbor synchronization and maximizing the usage of all available channels. Existing designs are confined to the MAC layer and scale poorly as the network grows in coverage and density. We recently proposed Dominion as a cross-layer architecture that includes both medium access control and routing. Dominion eliminates the need for neighbor synchronization at the MAC layer and pushes the intelligence up the network stack. At the MAC layer, a node switches channels according to a deterministic schedule which guarantees that a node converges with each of its neighbors periodically. At the network layer, the channel-hopping aware routing substrate routes traffic along the frequency domain, i.e., packets along a multi-hop route generally traverse via multiple channels. In this paper, we present the complete design, analysis and evaluation of Dominion and make four new contributions. Firstly, we extend Dominion to support goal-oriented routing: source nodes can locally choose to maximize throughput or minimize end-to-end latency without requiring any changes in the network. Secondly, we describe a technique that eliminates intra-flow interference. In absence of extrinsic interference, Dominion now allows network flows to maintain constant throughput and deterministic end-to-end latencies irrespective of distance. Thirdly, via theoretical modeling and analysis, we provide expected throughput and end-to-end latencies for network flows. Finally, via extensive QualNet simulations we show that Dominion achieves 1064% higher throughput than IEEE 802.11 while being 299% fairer.
wireless mesh networks multi-channel networks cross-layer design multi-path routing