Load-balanced mesh router migration for wireless mesh networks

Load-balancing among domains in a wireless mesh network (WMN) is normally achieved by changing the Internet attachment of mesh routers (MRs) that carry the traffic from mobile stations (MSs). The greediness of load-balancing algorithms may force MRs to frequently change their Internet attachments, and thus degrade network performance due to inter-domain mobility of the associated MSs. In this paper, we discuss the negative impact on the performance of MSs’ mobility, due to inter-domain reassignment of MR. A MR migration scheme is proposed to achieve a tradeoff between load-balancing and inter-domain reassignment of MR. The proposed load-balancing scheme for WMNs includes: an initialization procedure to divide a WMN into domains, and a load adjustment procedure to rebalance the traffic load among the neighboring domains when required. We also provide a framework for handling inter-domain mobility in support of multi-hop communication using the Multi-hop cellular IP. Our simulation results show that the proposed protocol effectively controls MR’s change in connectivity as well as MS’s mobility.