Enhancing robustness of wireless mesh networks using virtual routers

Abstract

A major advantage of a wireless mesh network is its self-configuring functionality. When a mesh node fails, one can simply replace it with a new mesh node. Due to unpredictable changes of environment, the connectivity WMNs and the reliability of individual mesh node decreased rapidly. The connectivity disruptions are often to introducing delay or even worse dropping messages. Ideally, a failed mesh node should be repaired or replaced immediately to maintain the connectivity of WMN. However, this might be difficult to achieve due to the environment (e.g., bridges or tunnels) and limited resources. It is desirable to have a failure-resilient wireless mesh network that can temporarily withstand one or multiple failed mesh nodes until they can be taken care of. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid mesh network, called Resilient Mesh Network (RMN), that can effectively retain the coverage and capacity of the original network until the failed mesh nodes can be repaired or replaced.