Wireless Mesh Network (WMN)

Routing Protocols
Dr. Saaidal Razalli Azzuhri
B.Eng (Malaya), M.Sc (MUST), PhD (Queensland)

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Outline

• Introduction
• Types & Applications

• Routing Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks

• Routing Basics
• Routing Metrics
• Main WMN protocols (OLSR and AODV)
• Limitation and Challenges of WMN

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Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN)
Wired Link Internet
Internet
Wireless Link Wired Link
Internet Internet
Gateway Gateway
Wireless Link

Switch

Mesh
Server Router
Mesh
Router Mesh
Surveillance
Access Router
Camera
Point
Mesh Mesh
Router Router

Access Access
Point Point

Access
Point

Conventional Wireless LANs Wireless Mesh Networks

• Clients connect to Access Points • Backbone is wireless multi-hop

via single-hop wireless link network
• Access Points are connected via • Redundant paths
wired backbone network • Self-healing, self-configuring
• No redundancy • Mobility of Access Points (Mesh
• Mobile Access Points not Routers) supported
supported
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Types of Wireless Mesh Networks

• Infrastructure/Backbone (Type 1)

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Types of Wireless Mesh Networks

• Client Mesh (Type 2)

• In the same network or cluster

• Provide peer-to-peer network among client devices
• Similar to MANETs

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Types of Wireless Mesh Networks

• Hybrid Mesh (Type 3)

• Combine infrastructure and client meshing

• Mesh clients access the mesh router directly with other mesh clients
• The most application wise mesh network types
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Applications of Wireless Mesh Networks

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Routing Basics

• One of the challenges in WMN is routing

– Routing is basely finding a path from a source to destination
• Routing protocols provide the optimal path through a multihop WMN
• Routing consists of two fundamental steps:
– Forwarding packets to the next hop
– Determining how to forward packets (building a routing table or
specifying a route)

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Routing Metrics

• Routing protocols compute minimum cost (optimal) paths

between source and destination nodes

• Routing metric determines cost

– Examples
• Shortest path in terms of hop count
• Lowest delay
• Maximum bandwidth
• …

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WMN Routing Metrics

• Hop count
– Classical routing metric that choose minimum hops from source to
destination
– No wireless environment consideration (link quality etc)
• Expected Transmission Count (ETX)
– Accounts for data loss due to medium access contention and errors
– Considers the number of retransmission needed to successfully transmit
a packet over link
• Expected Transmission Time (ETT)
– Enhancement version of ETX as it further includes the bandwidth of the
link in its computation

• In relatively static network, ETX outperforms Hop Count metric, but

in highly dynamic mobile network, Hop Count metric performs better
than ETX*
*D. De Couto, D. Aguayo, J. Bicket, and R. Morris, “A High Throughput Path Metric for
Multi-Hop Wireless Routing,” ACM Mobicom, 2003.
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 Types of WMN Routing Protocols

• Proactive protocols
– Maintain routes between every host
pair at all times
– Based on periodic updates; High
routing overhead
– Example: OLSR (Optimized Link State
Routing)

• Reactive protocols
– Determine route if and when needed
– Attempt to repair a path when a routing
failure occurs
– Example:
• AODV (Ad-Hoc On-Demand
Distance Vector)

• Hybrid protocols
– Combination of proactive and reactive
– Example : ZRP (Zone Routing
Protocol)

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Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR)

• Most Widely used proactive-WMN routing protocol

• References
– T. Clausen, P. Jacquet, “Optimized Link State Routing
Protocol,” IETF RFC 3626, 2003.
– P. Jacquet, P. Muhlethaler, T. Clausen, A. Laouiti, A. Qayyum,
and L. Viennot, “Optimized Link State Routing Protocol for Ad
Hoc Networks,” Proceedings IEEE INMIC, 2001, pp. 62-68.
• A second version of OLSR (OLSRv2) has been
proposed (IETF draft stage) for further improvement of
OLSR

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OLSR Concepts

• Proactively maintains routes

– A route is available immediately when needed
• Based on the link-state protocol
– Nodes periodically broadcast information about their links to all
nodes in the network (link state routing)
• High overhead in wireless networks
– OLSR uses special nodes called Multipoint Relays (MPR) to
minimise flooding overhead
• Send link state updates on behalf of other nodes
• Reduces number of control packets by reducing duplicate
transmissions

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MPR Selection in OLSR

• Nodes exchange neighbor lists to know their 2-hop

neighbors
• Select MPRs from 1-hop neighbours so that node has
information all its two hop neighbours via MPRs

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MPR Selection in OLSR

• Nodes C and E are selected as MPR of A, and forward

topology information received from A
• Nodes A and H are MPRs for node E
• Node K forwards information received from H

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OLSR Key Protocol Parameters

• Hello Interval
– Control the frequency of hello message sending for the purpose
of neighbour sensing and 2-hop neighbours info
– Information in hello message is also used to select node’s MPR
to maintain the link topology
• Topology Control (TC) Interval
– Control the frequency of TC message to maintain the topology of
the network and routing table calculation
– Only MPR nodes sends TC message to its selector nodes
• Willingness
– Defined as a ‘willingness’ of node to forward traffic and control
packets
• Example
– Node with low battery level decreases its Willingness
parameter
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Ad-Hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV)

• Most widely used reactive-WMN routing protocol

• References
– C. E. Perkins, E. M. Belding-Royer, and S. R. Das, “Ad hoc On-
Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing,” IETF RFC 3561,
2003.
– C. E. Perkins and E. M. Royer, “Ad hoc On-Demand Distance
Vector Routing,” Proceedings 2nd IEEE Workshop on Mobile
Computing Systems and Applications, February 1999, pp. 90-
100.
• DYMO (later renamed as AODVv2), a simplified version
of AODV, has been proposed for WMN but still in the
draft stage

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AODV Concepts

• Pure on-demand routing protocol

– A node does not perform route discovery or maintenance until it
needs a route to another node or it offers its services as an
intermediate node
– Nodes that are not on active paths do not maintain routing
information and do not participate in routing table exchanges
• Route Requests (RREQ) are used to find a path from
source to intended destination
• When the intended destination receives a Route
Request, it replies by sending a Route Reply (RREP)
• Route Reply travels along the reverse path set-up when
Route Request is forwarded

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AODV Route Discovery

Source node S broadcasts Route Y

Request message (RREQ)

Z
S E
F
B
C M L
J
A G
H D
K
I N

Represents a node that has received RREQ for D from S

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 AODV Route Discovery

Y
Broadcast transmission

Z
S E
F
B
C M L
J
A G
H D
K
I N

Represents transmission of RREQ

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 AODV Route Discovery

RREQ is broadcast across the network, until it reaches Destination D Y

Z
S E
F
B
C M L
J
A G
H D
K
I N

Represents links on Reverse Path

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AODV Route Discovery

Y
Reverse Path Setup in AODV

Z
S E
F
B
C M L
J
A G
H D
K
I N

Forward links are setup when RREP travels along

the reverse path

Represents a link on the forward path

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AODV Key Protocol Parameters

• Hello Interval
– Control the sending frequency of hello message as a beacon to
discover link failure
– If after certain time node not receiving hello message from its
neighbour, the route is considered broken
– If hello message is received, fresh table entry will be created
• Active Route Timeout (ART)
– Decides how long a node should keep a route in the routing
table after the last successful transmission of data packets
– If a route is not used after ART seconds, the route will be
removed from the routing and marked invalid

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Limitation and challenges of WMN

• Many protocols have been proposed, originally invented for

MANETs

• No single protocol or fixed protocol parameter values work optimally

in all environments
– Different protocols performs differently in different situations/scenarios
(network size, node mobility, traffic pattern, …)
– Not “one-size-fits-all”

• Examples
– Reactive routing is better for sparse traffic while Proactive routing is better for
dense traffic pattern
• C. E. Perkins, S. Karim, W. Cedric, and S. Mahesh, “Better Plumbing for Reduced Flooding,”
Proceedings of 68th IETF, 2007

– In relatively static network, ETX outperforms Hop Count metric, but in highly
dynamic mobile network, Hop Count metric performs better than ETX*

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Limitation and challenges of WMN

• The need for adaptive protocols

– No single protocols works well in variety of dynamic
network conditions
– Unable to adapt according to network conditions
(Network topology change, data congestion, shared
medium contention, varying traffic patterns and loads)
– Preset systems parameters may not be suitable for all
network conditions
– Unplanned and unpredictable deployment of wireless
networks

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Limitation and challenges of WMN

• Goal:
– Develop adaptive WMN routing protocol that adapts
behaviour and protocol parameters according to
network environment
•  increased network performance, in particular in highly
dynamic and unpredictable deployment scenarios

• In contrast, currently used WMN protocols are static and

“one-size-fits-all”

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 Thank You !

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