Efficient Design of WiMAX/802.16 Mesh Networks

Broadband wireless networks are becoming increasingly popular due to their fast and inexpensive deployment and their capabilities of providing flexible and ubiquitous Internet access. While the majority of existing broadband wireless networks are still exclusively limited to single hop access, it is the ability of these networks to forward data frames over multi-hop wireless routes which enabled them to easily extend the network coverage area. Unfortunately, achieving good multihop throughput has been challenging due to several factors, such as lossy wireless links caused by interference from concurrent transmissions, and intra-path interference caused by transmissions on successive hops along a single path. In this work, we focus on the IEEE 802.16 WiMAX mesh multi-hop and multi-channel. To maximize the network performance of mesh networks (e.g., throughput), it is essential to consider a cross-layer design, exploiting the dependency between protocol layers such as the routing network layer and the scheduling resource allocation MAC layer. Therefore this book considers a cross-layer design approach for designing efficient wireless mesh multi-hop networks.