A Survey on Routing Protocols That Really Exploit Wireless Mesh Network Features

The design of a routing protocol that really exploits the specific features of a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) still remains a challenge. The expected additional benefit, with respect to those that do not or cannot exploit them, is an increase in overall throughput supported by the network. The static and non-power constrained nature of backbone nodes allow offering some exploitable features towards this goal, such as multi-radio and multi-channel support, stability, and increased CPU and storage capabilities. Such features have a strong impact on the design of the routing scheme, which makes inefficient to port existing solutions from wired and other wireless networks. As a consequence, in recent years, many alternative routing protocols have been proposed for WMNs.