On the design of reliable wireless mesh network infrastructure with QoS constraints

In the design of Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs), one of the fundamental considerations is the reliability and availability of communication paths between network pairs in the presence of node failures. Reliability and deployment cost are important and are largely determined by network topology. In fact, adding redundant network components increases the reliability of a network, but also increases the cost substantially. Usually, network performance and reliability are considered separately. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm based on ear decomposition for constructing reliable WMN infrastructure that resists the failure of a single mesh node and ensures full coverage to all Mesh Clients (MCs). Via a case study, we show the tight relationship between network deployment cost, performance and reliability in a simultaneous optimization in terms of cost and traffic load balancing over network channels. The proposed multi-objective optimization model is solved using meta-heuristics which provides the network operator with a set of reliable tradeoff solutions.