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<p>This thesis presents the lessons learned from building an IEEE 802.11 wireless mesh network (WMN) test-bed. Each network node consists of a Linux processor with multiple IEEE 802.11b/g transceivers operating in the 2.4 GHz band. Each transceiver consists of a medium access control (MAC) and base-band processor (BBP) in addition to a radio. A device driver was modified to control some of the key transceiver functions. The test-bed's Wi-Fi interfaces can be programmed to implement any mesh communication topology. All Wi-Fi interfaces use omni-directional antennas and the IEEE 802.11b operation mode.</p> <p>The test-bed design is easily extendable to incorporate newer Wi-Fi technologies. Measurements of co-channel interference in each Wi-Fi channel including received signal strength (RSS) and signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) are presented. The AutoMin algorithm was developed in order to use the captured physical layer (PHY) metrics to avoid Wi-Fi congestion during test-bed operation. A comparison of a software-based spectrum analyzer to a commercial one is described. Key Wi-Fi functions in the Ralink driver source code are explored in depth. The compliance of the Ralink chip-set to the IEEE 802.11b spectral mask was verified. The maximum driver-induced retuning rate for the popular Ralink radio was found experimentally. This data can be used to optimize the performance of IEEE 802.11 WMNs.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p>In this thesis we study a wireless mesh network (WMN), where a number of access points (APs) form a wireless infrastructure and provide communications to the mobile stations (MSs). Different APs share the same frequency channel. We study how to provide fair throughput for the MSs while efficiently utilizing the channel resources through effective handoff management and channel timeline allocations.</p> <p>In the first part of the thesis, we assume that the channel time allocations at the AP level are given, and jointly consider the handoff management of the MSs and the channel time allocations at the MS level. An optimization problem is formulated based on long-term proportional fairness (PF) and solved. A heuristic distributed scheme is then proposed, which can be easily implemented in a practical WMN.</p> <p>In the second part, we jointly study the channel time allocations at the AP level and the MS level together with the MS handoff management. An optimization problem is first formulated and solved as a benchmark. Two distributed schemes are proposed by decoupling the handoff management and time allocations. The HO-CA scheme performs heuristic handoff decisions for the MSs and then optimizes the channel time allocations. The CA-HO scheme allocates the channel time to individual APs based on the neighboring relationship of the APs, and then makes handoff.</p> <p>Numerical results indicate that our proposed distributed schemes can achieve close-to-optimum fairness, improve the network utilization and balance the traffic load under uneven MSs geographical distributions.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

近年來興起一個前瞻性無線技術，稱之為無線網狀網路（Wireless Mesh Networks；WMNs） 以所費低廉方式提供無線網路最後一哩存取Internet，同時具備ad hoc網路全部優點。例如自我組織（self-organization）、自我組態（self-configuration）等。而802.11協議已經納入802.11s草案。雖然802.11的實體層支持多元速率，大多數研究為了簡化多假設在單一速率的情況下。但事實上，802.11可以支援的Automatic Rate Fallback (ARF)多元速率演算法；換句話說，由於信號雜訊比和資料錯誤率的不同，資料傳輸速率將自動調整。在這裡，我們假定在WMNs上使用 802.11協定，並且考慮路徑容量，延遲，流量公平及多元速率多跳接的環境。為了設法指出和改善這方面的議題，我們提出了經由改進802.11競爭視窗和加權公平調度機制的跨階層設計。透過一系列的模擬指出問題並找出合適的解決方案。結果顯示，如果增加低速率連結的優先權和考慮流量公平問題，容量及延遲將得到改善。 / A new promising wireless technology has emerged recently, called wireless mesh networks (WMNs). WMNs are an inexpensive way to provide wireless last-mile broadband Internet access and have all the advantages of ad hoc networks, such as self-organization, self-configuration. IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol has been adopted in 802.11s draft. Although IEEE 802.11 physical layer supports multiple rates, most researches assume single rate environment for simplicity. However, in reality, 802.11 adopts automatic rate fallback (ARF) multi-rate algorithm. In other words, the data rate will be automatically adjusted due to its signal-to-noise ratio, or error rate. Here, we assume the fitness of IEEE 802.11 over WMNs, and considering path capacity, delay, flow fairness, in multi-hop multi-rate environments. They all are affected by data rates on the links along the path. In order to address and improve the above issues, we propose a cross layer scheme which is modified by the contention window of IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC and weighted fairness scheduling mechanism. We point out the problem and find out the suitable solution via a series of scenarios simulations. The results show that if increasing the priority of the low data link and taking care about flow fairness problem, the capacity and delay will be improved.

A tecnologia de comunicação em redes sem fio em malha, com base no padrão IEEE 802.11, tem sido uma solução tecnológica relevante no cenário atual das redes sem fio. Entretanto, com a eliminação dos cabos para comunicação de dados, as redes sem fio em malha dependem de fonte de energia para energizar os pontos de acesso da rede, que nem sempre está disponível na forma cabeada no local da instalação. Neste cenário, sendo o Brasil um país situado em uma zona tropical com alta incidência anual de radiação solar, a possibilidade da utilização da conversão da energia solar em elétrica é uma alternativa para eliminar a dependência de fonte de energia cabeada dos pontos de acesso da rede sem fio em malha. Este trabalho apresenta considerações sobre o desenvolvimento de sistemas autônomos de comunicação sem fio em malha, alimentados por energia solar fotovoltaica, compactos e de fácil instalação em área urbana e rural. Apresenta também, informações sobre o protótipo implementado denominado SAM Solar e respectiva avaliação quanto a autonomia, área de cobertura, número de usuários, altura mínima de instalação e taxa de transferência. / The wireless mesh network communication technology, based on the IEEE802.11 standard, has been a relevant technology solution for wireless networking in the recent years. However, even with the elimination of cables for data communication, the wireless mesh networks have to be connected to a voltage source using an electrical cable that may not be available at the local installation. In this scenario, being Brazil a country located in a tropical zone that receives large annual solar irradiation, the conversion of photons to electricity an be an alternative to eliminate the needs of wiring to the mesh access points. This work contributes to the development of autonomous wireless mesh communication systems powered by solar energy, with easy installation in urban or rural areas. This work also describes its evaluations in aspects such as autonomy, wireless coverage, number of users supported, installation height and throughput.

A tecnologia de comunicação em redes sem fio em malha, com base no padrão IEEE 802.11, tem sido uma solução tecnológica relevante no cenário atual das redes sem fio. Entretanto, com a eliminação dos cabos para comunicação de dados, as redes sem fio em malha dependem de fonte de energia para energizar os pontos de acesso da rede, que nem sempre está disponível na forma cabeada no local da instalação. Neste cenário, sendo o Brasil um país situado em uma zona tropical com alta incidência anual de radiação solar, a possibilidade da utilização da conversão da energia solar em elétrica é uma alternativa para eliminar a dependência de fonte de energia cabeada dos pontos de acesso da rede sem fio em malha. Este trabalho apresenta considerações sobre o desenvolvimento de sistemas autônomos de comunicação sem fio em malha, alimentados por energia solar fotovoltaica, compactos e de fácil instalação em área urbana e rural. Apresenta também, informações sobre o protótipo implementado denominado SAM Solar e respectiva avaliação quanto a autonomia, área de cobertura, número de usuários, altura mínima de instalação e taxa de transferência. / The wireless mesh network communication technology, based on the IEEE802.11 standard, has been a relevant technology solution for wireless networking in the recent years. However, even with the elimination of cables for data communication, the wireless mesh networks have to be connected to a voltage source using an electrical cable that may not be available at the local installation. In this scenario, being Brazil a country located in a tropical zone that receives large annual solar irradiation, the conversion of photons to electricity an be an alternative to eliminate the needs of wiring to the mesh access points. This work contributes to the development of autonomous wireless mesh communication systems powered by solar energy, with easy installation in urban or rural areas. This work also describes its evaluations in aspects such as autonomy, wireless coverage, number of users supported, installation height and throughput.

Les réseaux sans fil maillés offrent une infrastructure pour interconnecter les stations d’accès de réseaux de différentes technologies. Ils disposent d’une topologie maillée où tous les routeurs sont connectés de proche en proche sans hiérarchie centrale. Le routage des données, dans ce type de réseaux, doit être réalisé tout en optimisant les ressources du réseau et en respectant au mieux les exigences de QoS des utilisateurs. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un routage orienté qualité de service dans un réseau sans fil métropolitain grâce à une approche de type cross-layer. Nous avons commencé par étudier l’impact des couches PHY et MAC sur le routage afin d’en déduire la meilleure combinaison protocolaire pour un réseau sans fil maillé. Nous avons, par la suite, orienté notre travail sur l’étude du comportement du protocole de routage OLSR sous différentes métriques de routage. Les résultats de cette étude ont confirmé les limites des métriques existantes à reproduire la qualité réelle des liens et ont soulevé plusieurs points d’optimisation sur lesquels nous avons focalisé. Nous avons donc proposé de nouvelles métriques qui renseignent sur la qualité des liens, en se basant sur les caractéristiques PHY et MAC des liens réseaux, notamment la disponibilité du lien, le taux de perte, la bande passante résiduelle, etc. L’acquisition de ces paramètres des couches basses se fait à l’aide d’un mécanisme de cross-layer. Ces métriques permettent d’appréhender les interférences inter-flux et d’éviter de créer des goulots d’étranglement en équilibrant les charges sur les différents liens. En se basant sur le modèle de graphe de conflit et le calcul des cliques maximales, nous avons proposé une méthode d’estimation de la bande passante résiduelle qui permet de considérer, en plus, les interférences intra-flux. Finalement, nous avons proposé un protocole de routage qui supporte cette métrique et nous avons étudié ses performances par simulation en comparaison avec d’autres métriques et protocoles de routage existants. Les résultats obtenus ont révélé l’aptitude de notre protocole à supporter le passage à l’échelle du réseau ainsi que sa capacité à choisir les routes offrant le plus de débit et le moins de délai, permettant ainsi, une meilleure livraison du trafic de données. / Wireless Mesh Networks provide infrastructure to interconnect access stations in networks of different technologies. They have a mesh topology where all the routers are connected with no central hierarchy. Routing in WMNs must be carried out while optimizing network resources and respecting the best user QoS requirements. In this thesis, we propose a QoS-oriented routing in a metropolitan wireless network using a cross-layer approach. We first studied the impact of the PHY and MAC layers on routing to deduce the best combination protocol for a wireless mesh network. We have subsequently focused our work on studying the behavior of the OLSR routing protocol with different routing metrics. The results of this study confirmed the limits of existing metrics to reproduce the real link quality and raised a number of optimization points on which we focused. We have, therefore, proposed new metrics that provide information about link quality, based on PHY and MAC characteristics, including the link availability, the loss rate, the available bandwidth, etc. These low layers parameters are acquired using a cross-layer mechanism. These metrics allow to apprehend inter-flow interferences and avoid bottleneck formation by balancing traffic load on the links. Based on the conflict graph model and calculation of maximal cliques, we proposed a method to estimate the available bandwidth of a path which considers, in addition, intra-flow interferences. Finally, we proposed a routing protocol that supports this metric and we studied by simulation its performances compared to different existing routing metrics and protocols. The results revealed the ability of our protocol to support the network scalability as well as its ability to choose routes with high throughput and limited delay, thus, better delivery of data traffic.

The use of 802.11-based multi-hop wireless mesh networks for Internet access is extensive and growing. The primary advantages of this approach are ease of deployment and lower cost. However, these networks are designed for web and e-mail applications. Highly interactive applications, such as multiplayer online games and VoIP, with their requirements for low delay, present significant challenges to these networks. In particular, the interaction between real-time traffic and TCP traffic tends to result in either a failure of the real-time traffic getting its needed QoS or the TCP traffic unnecessarily experiencing very poor throughput. To solve this problem we place real-time and TCP traffic into separate queues. We then rate-limit TCP traffic based on the average queue size of the local or remote real-time queues. Thus, TCP traffic is permitted to use excess bandwidth as long as it does not interfere with real-time traffic guarantees. We therefore call our scheme Real-time Queue-based Rate and Admission Control, RtQ-RAC. Extensive simulations using the network simulator, ns-2, demonstrate that our approach is effective in providing soft real-time support, while allowing efficient use of the remaining bandwidth for TCP traffic.

The use of 802.11-based multi-hop wireless mesh networks for Internet access is extensive and growing. The primary advantages of this approach are ease of deployment and lower cost. However, these networks are designed for web and e-mail applications. Highly interactive applications, such as multiplayer online games and VoIP, with their requirements for low delay, present significant challenges to these networks. In particular, the interaction between real-time traffic and TCP traffic tends to result in either a failure of the real-time traffic getting its needed QoS or the TCP traffic unnecessarily experiencing very poor throughput. To solve this problem we place real-time and TCP traffic into separate queues. We then rate-limit TCP traffic based on the average queue size of the local or remote real-time queues. Thus, TCP traffic is permitted to use excess bandwidth as long as it does not interfere with real-time traffic guarantees. We therefore call our scheme Real-time Queue-based Rate and Admission Control, RtQ-RAC. Extensive simulations using the network simulator, ns-2, demonstrate that our approach is effective in providing soft real-time support, while allowing efficient use of the remaining bandwidth for TCP traffic.

本論文對IEEE 802.16 協調分散式之網狀網路提出一允入控制之演算法。在此類網路中，控制子訊框交換各站台之排程訊息，並預留資料子訊框之時槽作為實際資料傳輸之用。我們利用令牌桶機制來控制網路訊流之流量特徵，如此可簡單的估計各訊流所需之頻寬。我們使用了所提出的頻寬估計方法，並一起考慮各訊流之跳接數與延遲時間之需求，提出的允入控制演算法能夠保證即時性串流之延遲時間需求，且可避免低等級訊流發生飢餓情形。模擬結果顯示，所提出的允入控制方法可以有效的把超過延遲時間需求之即時性訊流封包數目降低，並且低等級訊流在網路負載大時仍然可以存取頻道。 / We propose a routing metric (SWEB: Shortest-Widest Efficient Bandwidth) and an admission control (TAC: Token bucket-based Admission Control) algorithm under IEEE 802.16 coordinated, distributed mesh networks. In such network architectures, all scheduling messages are exchanged in the control subframes to reserve the timeslots in data subframes for the actual data transmissions. The token bucket mechanism is utilized to control the traffic pattern for easily estimating the bandwidth of a connection. We apply the bandwidth estimation and take the hop count and delay requirements into consideration. TAC is designed to guarantee the delay requirements of the real-time traffic flows, and avoid the starvation of the low priority ones. Simulation results show that TAC algorithm can effectively reduce the number of real-time packets that exceed the delay requirements and low priority flows still can access the channel when the network is heavily-loaded.