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MAvB A Maximum Available Bandwidth based
routing metric for multiradio multichannel Wireless
Mesh Networks ensuring QoS provisions for real time
communications
Dibakar Chakraborty
Department of computer Science and Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Agartala
Agartala, India
dibs.chak@gmail.com
Mrinal Kanti Debbarma
Department of computer Science and Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Agartala
Agartala, India
mkdb06@gmail.com


AbstractSelf managing, self healing Wireless Mesh
Networks are deployed with the goal of providing seamless
broadband connectivity to community users. In this paper, we
present a routing metric for multiradio multichannel mesh
networks that emphasizes on estimating node to node available
bandwidth while capturing both interflow and intraflow
interference. Moreover, the isotonic nature of the proposed
Maximum Available Bandwidth (MAvB) metric enhances its
applicability to the link state routing protocols. We have
implemented the MAvB metric in the OLSR protocol and
evaluated it in NS 2.34 simulator. Experimental results specify
the efficiency of the proposed metric towards finding less
interfering and bandwidth guaranteed paths for real time
applications avoiding hotspots.
KeywordsAvailable bandwidth estimation; QoS provision;
wireless mesh network; multiradio; multichannel.
I. INTRODUCTION
The recent advances in wireless technology have given rise
to a self organized, self manipulating, self configurable and
easily deployable network, termed as Wireless Mesh Network
[1], [2]. Wireless Mesh Networks aim towards providing an
uninterrupted, reliable connectivity between its components by
combining the features of infrastructure based networks and
Mobile Adhoc Networks. Moreover, Wireless Mesh Networks
also supports multihop flows as each mesh node can act as a
relay or router by forwarding the flows (not destined for it) to
neighboring nodes.
However, basic services of WMNs do not support
transmission of traffic sensitive data, more precisely real time
data. Qos provisioning [3], [4] is the foremost need in
transferring such real time data and multimedia. It is also
evident that performance of a mesh network also depends on
the routing protocol especially on the routing schemes [5]
employed by the corresponding protocol. Interference is
another issue having significant impact on the performance of
mesh networks. Though introduction of multichannel
environment reduces interference to some extent but cannot
eliminate the interference caused by hidden terminals. In a
multichannel mesh, assignment of channels is an important
issue as it influences the performance of the network. Fig. 1
depicts channel assignment in a typical multichannel mesh.
It is also evident that providing QoS support in MAC layer
is a challenging task. Bandwidth is an essential component
that effects throughput of a routing protocol during traffic
sensitive data transmission and hence needs a special care to
be taken in order to calculate routing metrics [6]. Ergin et
al.[7] proposed two schemes to compute available bandwidth
providing admission control in parallel; first scheme is based
on dual carrier sensing with parallel transmission awareness
and the other based on traditional packet probing method. A
pathload tool based estimation scheme is presented in [8].
Wang et al. [9] proposed a methodology to estimate node
to node available bandwidth by estimating the neighbors
bandwidth according to its historical status and the amount of
data that it transferred recently.
This paper makes the following contributions:
- We establish a methodology for estimating node to
node available bandwidth while computing the
bandwidth consumption due to interflow and intraflow
interference. The proposed methodology also grabs
the influence of multi-radio multihop mesh network.
- Based on the above methodology, we present a
Maximum Available Bandwidth (MAvB) metric.
- Key features like isotonicity and finding bandwidth
suitable path make it appropriate for routing real time
data packets through loop free routes.
- Next, we present implementation of the proposed
metric in the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR)
[10] protocol and perform extensive simulations in
NS2 simulator [11] for a number of scenarios
corresponding to different topologies.
II. PRIOR RELATED WORKS ON ROUTING METRICS
In this section, we carry out a brief overview of some of
IEEE CONECCT2013 1569681867
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the efficient routing metrics[12], [13] applied to link state
routing protocols with their contributions towards QoS [14],
[15] provisioning.
Expected transmission count ( ETX ) [16] is one of the
first metrics proposed for WMNs. It actually focuses on
packet losses of a link during transmission. Basically, ETX
represents the expected number of transmission and
retransmission required to successfully deliver a packet.
However, ETX does not consider the information regarding
interference and channel data rate.
Authors in [17] modified ETX by introducing link data
rate with packet loss information. ETT of a link l is defined
as the expected MAC layer interval during a successful packet
transmission at l . ETT can be expressed as
l
l l
l
L
ETT ETX
R
=
Where,
l
R

is the transmission rate and
l
L is the packet
size of link l .
Authors in [17] proposed another metric for multiradio
mesh network with special consideration of intraflow
interference. WCETT for a path p can be defined as
1
(1 ) max
p l j
j k
WCETT ETT X
s s
= | +|

[0,1] |e is a tuning parameter and
j
X is defined as
j l
link l p is on channel j
X ETT
e
=

With k being the total number of channels
Yang et al. [12] showed that WCETT does not explicitly
consider interflow interference and is a non-isotonic metric
too. A metric with consideration of intraflow and interflow
interference is proposed in [18]. Though MIC is not isotonic
in nature but the authors argued that introduction of virtual
nodes can decompose MIC into an isotonic form. MIC
introduces two components to calculate minimum weight
paths. The MIC metric for a path p is computed as
1
min( )
p l i
l p node i p
MIC IRU CSC
N ETT
e e
= +

Where, N is the total number of nodes in the network and
min( ) ETT is the smallest ETT in the network
The IRU (Interference-aware Resource Usage)
component for link l is defined as
l l l
IRU ETT N =
l
N is the number of neighbors with whom transmission
on link l interferes
The second component Channel switching Cost ( CSC) is
given as
1 ( ( )) ( )
2 ( ( )) = ( )
w if Channel prev i Channel i
w if Channel prev i Channel i
CSC
=

Where, 0 1 2 w w s s and ( ) prev i is the channel used
in the previous hop of node i , ( ) Channel i is the channel
used in node i
iAWARE metric proposed in [19] captures interference
in terms of the level of power reception from interfering
neighborhood. The iAWARE metric for a path p is
expressed as
1
1
(1 ) max
n
i j
j k
i
iAWARE iAWARE X o o
s s
=
= +

The
j
X component is identical to that in WCETT . The
first component
j
iAWARE for a link j is defined as
j
j
j
ETT
iAWARE
IR
=


Figure 1. Sample channel assignment in a typical multichannel mesh network
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Where,
j
IR is the interference ratio for link j between
nodes u and v , defined as
min( ( ), ( ))
j j j
IR IR u IR v =
Where, the Interference Ratio at a node u for a link j is
computed as
( )
( )
( )
j
j
j
SINR u
IR u
SNR u
=
Where, ( )
j
SINR u is the Signal to Interference Noise
Ratio and ( )
j
SNR u is the Signal to Noise Ratio at node u .
In [20] a throughput based metric incorporating loss
dependence and load dependence is proposed. CATT is
derived according to IEEE 802.11 MAC layer based
throughput model for shared wireless channel access. The
CATT metric for a link l can be defined as
2
. .
l l
j L D k
l j
k j
j N k N
L
L
CATT ETX
R R
e e
| | | |
= t | |
| |
\ . \ .


Where,
l
ETX is the expected transmission count value
for link l .
l
N is the set of interfering links. L , R and t are
the corresponding packet length, data rate, and packet
transmission rate respectively.
III. PROPOSED ROUTING METRIC
Introduction of QoS provisioning in WMNs actually
upgrades throughput and minimizes latency, jitter. However, in
case of real time data transmission, bandwidth is proved to be
the basic factor in providing QoS guarantee.
A. Estimation of available bandwidth
A number of researches [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26]
have been conducted in estimation of available bandwidth
between a pair of neighbors. In the proposed idea every node
calculates its own bandwidth usage caused due to the existing
flows carried by it. Each nodes measurement of bandwidth
consumption is then wrapped into a hello message that is to be
broadcasted in the interfering neighborhood.
Because of the sharing nature of the wireless channels,
transmission failures due to collisions cannot be ignored. Even
the presence of collision avoidance mechanisms such as
CSMA/CA in the MAC layer cannot eliminate the interference
caused by the hidden terminals. Hence, we have introduced
the rate of unsuccessful transmissions (
l
) over a link l to
reflect the packet losses in Wireless Mesh Network. The
delivery ratio
l
d for a link l can be computed by calculating
the rate of successful packet transmission (
f
d ) in forward
direction and rate of successfully receiving the corresponding
acknowledgement (
r
d ). The equation to compute
l
d is given
by

l f r
d d d = (1)
The rate of unsuccessful transmission of packets that
requires retransmission for link l is (1 )
l l
d =
Now, for any two nodes , i j communicating via
link l ,
i j l
d d d = = . Similarly,
i j l
= = . However,
the value of
i
for a node i will be varied according to the
link over which it is communicating.
Thus, considering retransmissions, the total amount of
bandwidth consumption due to single hop flows in a node i
can be found as
( )
(1 )
i
j j j
node i i i data ch
j F
Usg T C
e
= t +

(2)
Where,
i
F is the set of existing flows carried by node i .
j
i
is the rate of unsuccessful transmission of packets for
node i while carrying flow j
j
i
t denotes the packet sending rate of flow j for node i
and
ch
C is the estimated channel capacity.
j
data
T is the estimated channel time occupied by each data
packet for flow j .
TABLE I. IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTES IN 802.11 b/a/g
Parameters
Values
802.11b 802.11a 802.11g
SLOT 20 s
9 s 9 s
SIFS 10 s
16 s 10 s
DIFS 50 s
34 s 28 s
Physical Layer Header 192 s
20 s 20 s
Minimum Data Rate 1 Mbps
6 Mbps 6 Mbps
RTS 20 Bytes
20 Bytes 20 Bytes
CTS 14 Bytes
14 Bytes 14 Bytes
ACK 14 Bytes
14 Bytes 14 Bytes
CWmin (units of SLOT) 31
15 15
CWmax (units of SLOT) 1023
1023 1023

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With consideration of four way handshake in IEEE 802.11
DCF shown pictorially in Fig. 2, the channel occupied time
data
T can be given by the following equation:
3
data DIFS RTS CTS ACK SIFS
ch
L H
T T T T T T
C
+
= + + + + +
(3)
Where, , ,
RTS CTS ACK
T T T are the transmission times taken
for RTS, CTS, and ACK messages respectively. ,
DIFS SIFS
T T
represent the different interframe spaces. And L is the length
of packet data and H is the total length of IP, MAC layer
header. Table 1 summarizes different attributes for IEEE
802.11b/a/g.
After receiving the hello messages containing individual
bandwidth consumption any node k computes the bandwidth
usage in its interfering neighborhood using (2) as

( )
(1 )
k i
k
j j j
k i i data ch
i Inter j F
k Inter
Inter usg T C
e e
e
| |
= t +
|
\ .

(4)
Where,
k
Inter is the set of nodes (excluding k ) causing interflow
interference for node k and initially populated with all nodes
within the interference range carrying different flows.
In order to include the bandwidth consumption due to
existing local flows in node k to grab the impacts of self
interference, (4) can be modified as
( )
( { })
(1 )
k i
j j j
k i i data ch
i Inter k j F
Inter usg T C
e e
| |
= t +
|
\ .

(5)
The two types of work status actually causing the channel
busyness time are transmit and receive. In general, any
existing flows in the interfering neighbors can be considered
as a single hop flow and can be computed without any
complexity by (2). Based on the above assumption, with the
information of total bandwidth consumption in the interfering
neighborhood (in order to capture the influences of interflow
interference and self interference) the available bandwidth of a
given node k can be computed by subtracting the usage
bandwidth of the interfering neighbors from the channel
capacity.
( )
( { })
( ) (1 )
i k
j
data
j j
i i ch ch
i Inter k j F
AvB k C T C
e e
| |
|
|
\ .
= t +


Now, with consideration of intraflow interference, the
bandwidth requirement for a given node k to drive a given
multihop flow m can be found as

( { })
(1 )
k
m m m
j j k data ch
j Intra k
Intra usg T C
e
= t +

(6)
Where,
k
Intra is the set of nodes (excluding k ) causing
intraflow interference for node k along the flow path and
initially populated with nodes within the interference range
along the flow path.
Based on the above, the estimated available bandwidth for
a node k incorporating the impacts of interflow interference,
self interference and intraflow interference can be written as:
( )
ch k k
AvB k C Inter usg Intra usg =
( )
( { })
(1 )
k i
j j j
ch i i data ch
i Inter k j F
C T C
e e
| |
= t +
|
\ .



( )
( { })
(1 )
k
cf cf cf
l l data ch
l Intra k
T C
e
t +

(7)
Where, cf is the current flow to be sent.
B. Metric structure
The proposed metric finds an optimal path to drive a flow
while satisfying the bandwidth requirement for transmission of
real time data. The path satisfying the following condition will
be selected as the route to forward packets to a specific
destination
max ( ( ))
path p to D
MAvB AvB p

= (8)
Where, ( ) AvB p is the available bandwidth for a path p
from source to destination is calculated as
( ) ( )
node i p
AvB p AvB i
e
=

(9)
Where, ( ) AvB i is the available bandwidth for node i ,
computed by (7).
The strength of the proposed metric lies in its isotonic and
agile behavior. Moreover, due to its isotonicity, MAvB also
prevents formation of forwarding loops during route
calculation with efficient algorithms of polynomial
complexity.


Figure 2. IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC operation
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IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Optimized Link State Routing protocol (upcoming in IEEE
802.11s) is a proactive protocol providing extension to
incorporate link quality information in computation of
minimum weight paths with Dijkstras algorithm. The
proactive nature and QoS awareness of OLSR have made it
appropriate for routing in Wireless Mesh Networks.
OLSR protocol with ML, MD, ETX metric is available in
[27] and OLSR module covering most of the link aware
metrics is available in [28]. We have implemented the
proposed Maximum Available Bandwidth (MAvB) metric in
OLSR and conducted extensive simulations with NS2.34
simulator.
A. Simulation setup
We have chosen CATT, iAWARE and ETX metrics for
comparison against MAvB. All routing metrics were evaluated
with respect to different parameters: throughput, packet loss
ratio, jitter and delay under varying loads. Table 2 lists
different parameters used during simulation.
TABLE II. PARAMETERS USED IN SIMULATION
Parameters Values
Number of nodes 50
Simulation area
10001000m
2

PHY/Mac IEEE 802.11b/g
Channel data rate 2/11 Mbps
No. of non overlapping
channels
3
Transmission range 250m
Interference range 500m
B. Simulation results
Fig. 3 gives a comparison of delay with MAvB, CATT,
iAWARE and ETX. It can be seen that with the increasing
load, end to end delay of ETX and iAWARE metrics increase
















































rapidly. Though CATT shows reasonable performance but
with higher values of load MAvB employs a distinct less in
delay than CATT because of its bandwidth awareness.
Figure 3. In a 50 node scenario Delay increases with load

Figure 4. In a scenario with 10 cbr flows admitted MAvB achieves the highest
Throughput

Figure 5. Jitter for different values of load

Figure 6. Packet loss ratio against varying load
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As expected, the MAvB metric outperforms the other three
efficient metrics (CATT, iAWARE, ETX) in terms of
throughput and jitter evidencing the suitability of MAvB in
real time applications. Results obtained in terms of throughput
and jitter against different loads is plotted in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5
respectively. It is evident that throughput and jitter is also
directly dependent on the bandwidth hence MAvB performs
much better as shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5.
Fig. 6 compares packet loss ratio of MAvB with ETX,
iAWARE, CATT. MAvB metric is an additive metric in
nature that is it takes the summation of the available
bandwidth of the corresponding nodes belonging to a path to
compute the path metric but does not consider the bottleneck
bandwidth explicitly as a result with higher values of load at
some stages when the bottleneck bandwidth is too low as
compared to the other nodes, MAvB performance is not the
best as presented in Fig. 6.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper has performed a brief study of the most relevant
routing metrics for multiradio wireless mesh networks. Then,
we presented a bandwidth based routing metric for multiradio
multichannel mesh network after deriving an available
bandwidth estimation methodology. Our simulation results
verified the significant increase in performance of the
proposed metric over the existing efficient metrics in a number
of scenarios corresponding to different mesh topologies.
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