Cross-layer selective routing for cost and delay minimization in IEEE 802.11ac wireless mesh network

A Wireless Internet-access Mesh NETwork (WIMNET) provides scalable and reliable internet access through the deployment of multiple access points (APs) and gateways (GWs). In this work, we propose a selective routing algorithm aiming at a hierarchical minimization of the operational cost and the maximal end-to-end delay. In particular, by deploying redundant APs/GWs in the network field, the WIMNET becomes robust to the link or AP/GW failure. However, these redundant APs/GWs increase the operational cost like the power consumption. By using Dijkstra algorithm and 2-opt algorithm, the proposed algorithm iteratively deactivates the deployed APs/GWs and performs the routing that reduces the maximal end-to-end delay based on the APs/GWs remaining active. The generated route meets the real-world constraints like fairness criterion. We further propose a cross-layer design to enhance the routing performance by exploiting the MAC-layer frame aggregation technique. The selective routing algorithm is then implemented in the WIMNET simulator proposed by our group. The numerical experiments demonstrate that in both indoor and open space environments, the proposed selective routing greatly reduces the operational cost, i.e., up to 80 % APs/GWs can be deactivated.