Energy optimization based path selection algorithm for IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh networks

Abstract

It is everyone’s dream to have network connectivity anywhere at all times. This dream can only be realized provided there are feasible solutions that are put in place for the next generation of wireless works. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) configures itself and because of its cost effectiveness, it is therefore seen as a solution for the next generation networks. However, this field still has a lot of limitations and the main constrain is that the energy of the nodes is very limited, especially when the network is deployed in rural areas where electricity is a scarce resource. This research therefore presents an energy optimization based path selection algorithm for IEEE 802.11s WMNs which is aimed at addressing the above mentioned constrains. As a newly proposed standard specifically designed for WMN, the IEEE 802.11s does not consider energy conservation as a priority in its protocol. As a result, the main goal for this research is that paths with enough energy for transmission in the network must be selected when transmitting packets. Our simulation results obtained from the experiments prove that there is a substantial increase with regard to the network’s operational time when energy is considered by the protocol used in IEEE 802.11s.