Packet routing in wireless mesh networks

Abstract

Wireless mesh networks (WMN) represent a type of mobile ad-hoc networks. These networks are very important in providing the Internet access to fixed and mobile terminal equipment. The main problem in WMNs (regarding to mesh routers and mesh clients) is a routing protocol, especially because it has to enable the access to network for both mesh and conventional clients. Access to Internet for wireless mesh networks is done via special mesh routers, the gateways. Several gateways may exist in a network. The main role of a routing protocol is to find way to establish connection between an end user and one of the gateways, as fast as possible, considering links status. This path should be optimized from the traffic distribution and path distance point. This paper presents one type of packet routing in wireless mesh networks based on Hopfield neural network. Artificial intelligence is used for path optimization. Distribution of local routing information and routing table updates is realized by mobile agents. In this way, network should have a simple way of routing information delivery and thus for effective user traffic support.