Software Defined Wireless Mesh Network Research Articles

Development of near real-time wireless image sequence streaming cloud using Apache Kafka for road traffic monitoring application.

In this paper, the authors have designed and implemented the prototype for a near real-time wireless image sequence streaming cloud with two-layered restoration for a road traffic monitoring application of a small-scale network. Since the proposed design is targeted to implement outdoors where the link or node failure could occur, the fault-tolerant capability must be considered. Having only one layer restoration may not provide a good quality of service. Therefore, a two-layer restoration framework is designed in the proposed system by restoring the network layer with the underlying software-defined wireless mesh network capability and at the local broker selection over the Apache Kafka framework. The monitoring application performance has been investigated for the end-to-end average latency and image loss percentage by outdoor testing for 13 hours from 5:40 P.M. 17th November 2020 to 6:40 A.M. 18th November 2020. The end-to-end average latency and image loss percentage have been found to be within the acceptable condition i.e. less than 5 seconds on average with approximated 10% image losses. The proposed system has also been compared with the traditional ad-hoc network, running the OLSR-based network layer, in terms of the rerouting time, restoration time and end-to-end average latency. Based on the emulated wireless network in controllable laboratory environments, the proposed SDWMN-based system outperforms the conventional OLSR-based system with potentially faster rerouting/restoration time due to SDN central controllability and with only marginally increased end-to-end average latency after re-routing/restoration completion. Algorithm complexity analysis has also been given for both the systems. Both the experimental and complexity analysis results thus suggest the practical applicability of the proposed system. Given this promising result, it is therefore recommended as the future research in further developing from the prototype design into the actual deployment for daily traffic monitoring operations.

Mobility models for next generation wireless mesh network

<span>Wireless mesh network (WMN) is a new trend in wireless communication promising greater flexibility, reliability, and performance over traditional wireless local area network (WLAN). Test bed analysis and emulation plays an essential role in valuation of software defined wireless network and node mobility is the prominent feature of next generation software defined wireless network. In this study, the mobility models employed for moving mobile stations in software defined wireless network are explored. Moreover, the importance of mobility model within software defined wireless mesh network for enhancing the performance through handover-based load balancing is analyzed. The mobility models for the next generation software defined wireless network are explored. Furthermore, we have presented the mobility models in the mininet-Wi-Fi test bed, and evaluated the performance of Gauss Marko’s mobility model.</span>

Opt-ACM: An Optimized load balancing based Admission Control Mechanism for Software Defined Hybrid Wireless based IoT (SDHW-IoT) network

The wide network applications of Internet of Things (IoT) urge to integrate the different wireless networking technologies. However, the future generation technologies like Software Defined Networking (SDN) can be useful to alleviate the associated challenges such as security, installation issues, coverage, etc. The growing number of IoT users produce massive volume of traffic causing heavy network load conditions, resulting in the state of network congestion. The network congestion may cause severe performance degradation issues such as frequent packet drops, longer delays, low throughput, etc. Thus, a promising solution is needed to reduce and/or prevent the network congestion. This paper presents an Optimized load balancing based Admission Control Mechanism (Opt-ACM) for effective network flow management resulting in the reduced network congestion. In addition to this, the paper highlights the challenges of the existing solutions, and discusses a Software Defined Hybrid Wireless based IoT (SDHW-IoT) network architecture consisting of Software Defined Wireless Sensor Network (SDWSN) and Software Defined Wireless Mesh Network (SDWMN). To validate the efficiency of Opt-ACM, a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) based optimization problem is formulated and tested using a well-known mathematical optimization solver called Gurobi. Additionally, Opt-ACM is also emulated in Mininet-Wifi with varying network scenarios against some traditional (OLSR and OSPF) and state-of-the-art (FACOR and EASDN) approaches. Opt-ACM achieves an overall efficiency of 9.47% and 12.32% over other approaches for Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) and Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) respectively. Similarly, an average improved efficiency of 26.77% and 33.10% is achieved with respect to the Average Delay (AD) and Average Jitter (AJ) metrics respectively.

A Medium-Term Disruption Tolerant SDN for Wireless TCP/IP Networks

A novel framework, Medium-Term Disruption Tolerant Software Defined Network (MDT-SDN), is proposed to handle medium-term disruptions of the order 10 seconds to 6 minutes. Such medium-term disruptions are crucial for the next generation wireless networks that use TCP/IP protocol stack, where the existing disruption tolerant approaches may under-perform due to resource constraints. MDT-SDN enables network control with an additional STORE action which exploits the nodes’ memory for buffering packets within the TCP/IP stack during link disruptions and forwards them as the links become alive. First, we model the network with medium-term disruptions using temporal graphs and design an Earliest Arrival Path with Minimal Storage Time (EAPMST) controller algorithm to demonstrate the MDT-SDN framework. The framework is realized in a software defined wireless mesh network testbed, using in-band control, involving mobile nodes with three mobility models: ( ${i}$ ) stationary nodes, ( ii ) group mobility, and ( iii ) random mobility. Experimental results with four application protocols justify the efficacy of MDT-SDN in providing storage control and additional performance benefits. MDT-SDN along with EAPMST improves the throughput beyond 25% with random mobility model and is capable of carrying packets and maintaining sessions during medium-term disruptions using the existing TCP/IP stack. The use of EAPMST reduces packets’ buffering time by 24.45% in group mobility while the buffering time increases in random mobility by 5.82%. However, EAPMST significantly reduces the buffer occupancy by 60.28% and 44.49% for group and random mobility, respectively.

The performance of Gauss Markov’s mobility model in emulated software defined wireless mesh network

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are a new trend in wireless communication promising greater flexibility, reliability, and performance over traditional wireless local area networks (WLANs).Test bed analysis and emulation plays an important role in evaluation of wireless networks and node mobility is the prominent feature of next generation wireless network. In this paper we will focus on the models of wireless station mobility and discuss their importance within the software defined wireless mesh network performance evaluation. The existing mobility models for the next generation software defined wireless network will be explored. Finlay, we will present the mobility models in the mininet-Wi-Fi test bed, and evaluate the performance of the models

Software Defined Wireless Mesh Network Flat Distribution Control Plane

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs), have a potential offering relatively stable Internet broadband access. The rapid development and growth of WMNs attract ISPs to support users’ coverage anywhere anytime. To achieve this goal network architecture must be addressed carefully. Software Defined Networking (SDN) proposes new network architecture for wired and wireless networks. Software Defined Wireless Networking (SDWN) has a great potential to increase efficiency, ease the complexity of control and management, and accelerate technology innovation rate of wireless networking. An SDN controller is the core component of an SDN network. It needs to have updated reports of the network status change, as in network topology and quality of service (QoS) in order to effectively configure and manage the network it controls. In this paper, we propose Flat Distributed Software Defined Wireless Mesh Network architecture where the controller aggregates entire topology discovery and monitors QoS properties of extended WMN nodes using Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) protocol, which is not possible in multi-hop ordinary architectures. The proposed architecture has been implemented on top of POX controller and Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) protocol. The experiments were conducted in a Mininet-wifi emulator, the results present the architecture control plane consistency and two application cases: topology discovery and QoS monitoring. The current results push us to study QoS-routing for video streaming over WMN.

A Novel Framework for Resource Discovery and Self-Configuration in Software Defined Wireless Mesh Networks

A novel framework is proposed for software defined wireless mesh networks involving mobile switches and controllers operating under in-band control in order to self-configure depending on the network dynamics. Besides the addition/removal of nodes (including switches and controllers) to/from the network in real-time, the problem becomes more challenging for switches to select an appropriate controller from multiple physical controllers. Therefore, first we design a resource discovery scheme to address the dynamic addition and removal of nodes with a software defined optimized link state routing (SD-OLSR) protocol. Apart from resource discovery, SD-OLSR captures the network dynamism and provides a global network view to the controller. Further, two controller handoff schemes, controller-initiated handoff (CIH) and switch-initiated handoff (SIH), are designed for switches to efficiently handover to a suitable controller. The framework and handoff schemes are tested using a software defined wireless mesh network testbed involving mobile switches and controllers operating under in-band control. The results show that SIH performs better in terms of SDN control overhead and PacketIn-FlowMod delay, while CIH outperforms SIH in terms of the number of handoffs and controller handoff time. A fair trade-off between the number of handoffs and the desired performance metric can be achieved by tuning the handoff threshold in both CIH and SIH schemes. As an added benefit, our framework provides better load sharing among the controllers in terms of flow-rule requests.

소프트웨어 정의 무선 메쉬 네트워크에서 마스터 컨트롤러 선택방법

소프트웨어 정의 무선 메쉬 네트워크에서 새로운 패킷에 실시간으로 잘 대응하기 위해선 가장 낮은 지연시간을 갖는 Flow Setup이 필요하다. 본 논문은 서포트 백터 머신(SVM)으로 영구적 링크 끊김을 예측하고 이를 바탕으로 미리 Flow Setup을 준비하여 기존 방법보다 끊김없이 낮은 지연시간을 갖는 마스터 컨트롤러 선택방법 RCM을 제안한다. In Software-Defined Wireless Mesh Network, a Flow Setup with the lowest delay is needed to adequately cope with new incoming packet in real time. Therefore, Master Controller Selection Method RCM that prepares Flow Setup in advance for more seamless and lower Flow Setup delay than existing methods is proposed by using SVM that predicts permanent link failure.

A trustworthy and energy-aware routing protocol in software-defined wireless mesh networks

A privacy-aware, secure and energy-aware green routing (PSGR) scheme was proposed.The PSGR defends against internal attacks and achieves strong privacy protection.The PSGR integrates a dynamic repu...

소프트웨어 정의 무선 메쉬 네트워크에서의 경량화된 중복 제거 기법

낮은 비용으로 무선 네트워킹 인프라를 구축할 수 있는 무선 메쉬 네트워크에서는 제한된 무선 자원을 효율적으로 이용하기 위해 패킷 전송(특히, 불필요하게 중복되는 패킷 전송)을 신중하게 처리해야 한다. 본 논문에서는 컨트롤러를 통한 중앙 집중식의 관리가 가능한 소프트웨어 정의 네트워킹 기반의 무선 메쉬 네트워크에서 불필요하게 중복 전송되는 데이터의 양을 감소시키기 위해 경량화된 중복 제거기법을 제안한다. 제안하는 중복 제거 기법은 감소되는 트래픽 양을 극대화하기 위해 컨트롤러가 1) 기계학습 기반의 정보 요청, 2) ID기반의 소스 라우팅, 3) 인기도 기반의 캐쉬 업데이트를 통해 중복 제거 효과를 극대화시킬 수 있는 최적의 경로를 결정한다. 시뮬레이션 결과는 제안하는 기법을 통해 전체 트래픽 부하를 18.34%-48.89% 만큼 감소시킬 수 있음을 보여준다.

A trustworthy and energy-aware routing protocol in software-defined wireless mesh networks

Hybrid Wireless Mesh Networks (HWMNs) were proposed to address the challenges in wireless communications to support mobile applications across different domains. Due to the multi-hop and decentralized network architecture, HWMNs are naturally susceptible to various security threats, especially internal attacks. Therefore, HWMNs must be able to detect anomalies, provide secure routing and protect user privacy through the cooperation among nodes. However, the existing routing protocols for HWMNs cannot ensure the security to protect the users privacy effectively. Moreover, traditional HWMNs are vertically integrated where the control and data planes of mesh routers are bundled together, which makes it complex and difficult to configure the network according to predefined security policies, and to adaptively respond to various dynamic security threats. Software-Defined Wireless Mesh Networks decouple the control plane and data plane of routers and thus enable a more flexible and efficient configuration of security policies. Taking up this opportunity to address the aforementioned challenges, this paper proposes a privacy-aware, secure and energy-aware green routing (PSGR) protocol that can defend against internal attacks, achieve stronger privacy protection and reduce energy consumption in Software-Defined HWMNs. The elaborate theoretical analysis verify that the PSGR protocol can implement the security and privacy protection against internal attacks effectively and efficiently. Simulation results demonstrate a superior performance of PSGR in terms of packet delivery ratio, network throughput and energy efficiency compared to the existing PA-SHWMP, PASER, and HWMP protocols in the presence of Blackhole/Grayhole attacks and wormhole attacks.

Towards Effective Intra-flow Network Coding in Software DefinedWireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have potential to provide convenient broadband wireless Internet access to mobile users. With the emergence of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm that separates control plane and data plane, WMNs can be easily deployed and managed. In addition, by exploiting the broadcast nature of the wireless medium and the spatial diversity of multi-hop wireless networks, intra-flow network coding has shown a greater benefit in comparison with traditional routing paradigms in data transmission for WMNs. In this paper, we develop a novel OpenCoding protocol, which combines the SDN technique with intra-flow network coding for WMNs. Our developed protocol can simplify the deployment and management of the network and improve network performance. In OpenCoding, a controller working on the control plane makes routing decisions for mesh routers and the hop-by-hop forwarding function is replaced by network coding functions in data plane. Through a simulation study, we show the effectiveness of the OpenCoding protocol in comparison with existing schemes. Our data shows that OpenCoding outperforms both traditional routing and intra-flow network coding schemes.

Software-defined wireless mesh networks for internet access sharing

Universal access to Internet is crucial, and as such, there have been several initiatives to enable wider access to the Internet. Public Access WiFi Service (PAWS) is one such initiative that takes advantage of the available unused capacity in home broadband connections and allows Less-than-Best Effort (LBE) access to these resources, as exemplified by Lowest Cost Denominator Networking (LCDNet). PAWS has been recently deployed in a deprived community in Nottingham, and, as any crowd-shared network, it faces limited coverage, since there is a single point of Internet access per guest whose availability depends on user sharing policies.To mitigate this problem and extend the coverage, we use a crowd-shared wireless mesh network (WMN), at which the home routers are interconnected as a mesh. Such a WMN provides multiple points of Internet access and can enable resource pooling across all available paths to the Internet backhaul. In order to coordinate traffic redirections through the WMN, we implement and deploy a software-defined WMN (SDWMN) control plane in one of the CONFINE community networks. We further investigate the potential benefits of a crowd-shared WMN for public Internet access by performing a comparative study between a WMN and PAWS. Our experimental results show that a crowd-shared WMN can provide much higher utilization of the shared bandwidth and can accommodate a substantially larger volume of guest traffic.

Software-defined wireless mesh networks: architecture and traffic orchestration

SDN has been envisioned as the next generation network paradigm by decoupling control plane and data plane, such that network management and optimization can be conducted in a centralized manner using global network information. In this article, we study how to apply SDN concept to a wireless mesh network that has been widely adopted by various applications. We first propose a novel architecture of SD-WMNs, and identify several critical challenges. Since wireless spectrum is a scarce resource that is shared by both data and control traffic in SD-WMNs, we propose three spectrum allocation and scheduling algorithms, namely FB-NS, NFB-NS, and NFB-S that orchestrate both control and data traffic. Finally, performance is evaluated via extensive simulations.