Designing Routing Metrics for Mesh Networks

Designing routing metrics is critical for performance in wireless mesh networks. The unique characteristics of mesh networks, such as static nodes and the shared nature of the wireless medium, invalidate existing solutions from both wired and wireless networks and impose unique requirements on designing routing metrics for mesh networks. In this paper, authors focus on identifying these requirements. They first analyze the possible types of routing protocols that can be used and show that proactive hop-by-hop routing protocols are the most appropriate for mesh networks. Then, authors examine the requirements for designing routing metrics according to the characteristics of mesh networks and the type of routing protocols used.