Development of A New Efficient Routing Scheme for WiMAX Mesh Networks

Abstract

The emerging WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) technology (IEEE 802.16) can offer low-cost, high speed and long- range communications. The WiMAX supports a point-to- multipoint (PMP) topology and a mesh topology. A WiMAX network is composed of a Base Station (BS) and multiple Subscriber Station (SS). A BS is the mother node and the SS is the child node, though a SS can also be a mother node of a SS if the child node is connected with him to reach to the BS. The BS serves as a gateway connecting to external networks such as the Internet. Number of nodes situated beside a node is called neighbor nodes. In PMP architecture, there is a multi-hop mesh that can be used to gain the high speed wide area network. Again in mesh topology, it increases the wireless coverage and reconfigures ability. In this mode performance depends on a good routing and scheduling protocol. Routing is the way by which a SS will connect with the BS. A good and efficient routing algorithm along with a scheduling algorithm can improve the total network performance significantly. Scheduling algorithm gives the time slot to all SS in a way so that a SS can transmit data or signal in that time slot. There are many research scopes on IEEE 802.16 mesh network especially in routing and scheduling protocol. The purpose of our thesis work is to propose a new routing algorithm to maximize the performance of the network.