Design and implementation of distributed load balancing and fast handoff for wireless mesh networks

Abstract

The association/handoff procedures are very important towards achieving a balanced operation in 802.11-based wireless mesh networks. In this paper, we design and implement a cooperative association/handoff scheme, where stations share useful information, and handoff is executed in a seamless manner. Furthermore, we introduce a cross-layer load balancing mechanism that takes into account uplink and downlink channel conditions, routing performance and congestion control. The proposed heuristic algorithms are inspired by the rapidly designed cooperative protocols and control the communication load of each mesh access point in a distributed manner. We evaluate the performance of our mechanisms through OPNET () simulations and testbed experiments. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.