On the nominal capacity of multi-radio multi-channel wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networking is an emerging technology with a wide range of applications, from community to metropolitan area networking. Mesh networks consist of wireless routers and access points that make up the network backbone which is connected to the wired infrastructure. Client devices are located at the edge. The capacity of a wireless mesh network is an important performance indicator as well as design parameter. It depends on various factors such as network size and topology, expected traffic patterns, number of interfaces per node, number of channels, routing and channel assignment etc. In this paper, we present an analytical framework for estimating the capacity of wireless mesh networks, based on the concept of collision domains. The capacity of grid-oriented mesh networks is investigated for various scenarios to study the impact of different network parameters.