An adaptive load balancing in multi-hop mesh networks for broadband fixed wireless access systems

Abstract

Broadband fixed wireless access (BFWA) systems with multi-hop mesh topologies operating at millimeter-wave bands have attracted considerable attention as a promising technology for high capacity access infrastructures. The primary advantage of the mesh network is an improvement of capacity by means of traffic engineering throughout the network. This work discusses an adaptive load balancing method that enables us to maximize the capacity for the mesh BFWA networks by transferring traffic using multiple routes. Considering wireless link qualities, the adaptive traffic load balancing method attempts to equalize each wireless link's utilization. The proposed method implements flow-based traffic load balancing in order to avoid deteriorating the performance of TCP communications. The performance of the proposed adaptive traffic load balancing method is evaluated on experimental mesh network environments.