ABSTRACT: In IEEE 802.11-based wireless mesh networks a user is associated with an access point (AP) in order to communicate and be part of the overall network. The association mechanism specified by the IEEE 802.11 standard does not consider the channel conditions and the AP load in the association process. Employing the mechanism in its plain form in wireless mesh networks we may only achieve low throughput and low user transmission rates. In our work, we propose an association mechanism that is aware of the uplink and downlink channel conditions. We introduce a metric that captures the channel conditions and the load of the APs in the network. The users use this metric in order to optimally associate with the available APs. We then extend the functionality of this mechanism in a cross-layer manner taking into account information from the routing layer. The novelty of the mechanism is that the routing QoS information of the backhaul is available to the end users. This information can be combined with the uplink and downlink channel information for the purpose of supporting optimal end to end communication and providing high end-to-end throughput values. We evaluate the performance of our system through simulations and testbed experimentation and we show that 802.11-based mesh networks that use the proposed association mechanism are more capable in meeting the needs of QoS-sensitive applications.

SPEAKER: George Athanasiou received the Diploma and MSc degree in Computer and Communications Engineering from the University of Thessaly, Greece in 2005 and 2007 respectively. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer and Communications Engineering, University of Thessaly, under the supervision of Professor Leandros Tassiulas. His research interests are in the field of computer and communication networks with emphasis on wireless and mobile communications, cross-layering, resource allocation, quality of service provisioning (QoS) and network management.