Gateway Selection in Wireless Mesh Networks

Question: A Research Proposal with Abstract, Research Goals, Background, Significant, Research Method, Ethical Issues, Facilities and Resources, Data Storage, Timeline and References headings. Answer: Abstract This paper covers the issues with gateway selection method and designs in wireless mesh network. The paper discussed about the topic and how the issues have evolved, what the impacts are and what may be future directions in solving the issues. It covers a range of literature on this topic to get adequate insight in the topic. Research Goals The goals of the research is to understand the topic deeply and then understand the issues related with the topic. The extensive research and literature review will give knowledge on the subject so that the solutions to the problems can be found out. In this research proposal, it will just give a detailed outline of the topic and future research. Background Information and communication technologies have become advanced and efficient in last few decades. The improvement is radical and it has made the broadband technologies and internet more robust and wide spread. Internet has become an integral part of any communication technology. It carries various type of information and offers different type of network services. The speed of data transmission has also improved. Now a days, Internet can be accessed from any smart phone, PDA, laptop, computer and several other smart devices. Wireless internet connection through wireless LANs at public places like airports, stations etc. All these have led to the wireless mesh network. Wireless mesh network is a topic that is being studied and researched in academia and industry extensively. This has added mobility to access to the Internet. In a wireless mesh network, the nodes are interconnected through some predefined set of gateways. Gateways are same as other nodes with some special features. A wireless mesh network consists of several multihop and wireless routers. These routers communicate through radio transmissions with other routers and nodes. [1] Gateways are used mainly for providing a wide area connectivity to the nodes attached to the network. Deployment of wireless mesh network can be done using IEEE 802.16 standard. [2] There are several amendments of this publication. Also, there have been a number of testing or pre deployment phases that have been planned parallel to the standardization process. Currently, a larger and multihop wireless mesh network includes more than a single gateway for connecting to the Internet. Previously, a single gateway called root node was used to provide access to the Internet. But introduction of multiple gateways in the network allows flexibility in the deployment and selection of the gateways. [3], [4]. So, use and selection of multiple gateways in a wireless mesh network has raised several design aspects. [5] For example, The selection of a gateway. Assignment of the gateway nodes. Routing through the selected gateways during a multihop data transmission. Now, the focus of this research is on selection of the gateways. Significance Wireless mesh networks are significant due to various reasons. Thus the factor of selection of gateway in wireless mesh network is becoming an important concern. [6] IEEE 802.11 based LANs are still in use and sometimes these are used as backbones in wireless mesh networks. These networks use static WMRs or wireless mesh routers. These WMRs create a multihop backbone to the IEEE 802.11 based LANs. It becomes last mile and high speed internet connection. Some of the special WMRs are used for connecting the wireless mesh network with IP addresses for accessing Internet. The routing is performed by the routers that are also used as access points in wireless mesh network. The backhaul routing strategy is used here. Here the main concern is maintenances of the connectivity and finding proper route. So gateway selection is an important part here. [7] Researches have shown some efficient gateway selection schemes for this cases. Future standards for wireless mesh networks can be developed based on these selection schemes with a little modification. The metrics used for selection of gateways are, route interference, gateway load and path quality. [8], [9], [10] Other than technical advantages, wireless mesh networks are low cost solutions in internetworking. So, this is another reason behind the popularity of wireless mesh networks. Other than cost savings the advantages of WMPs are, easier deployment, robust architecture, reliable coverage, stability in topology etc. For handling disaster recovery situations WMNs are very useful in storing back the network. Thus, WMNs and selection of gateways in WMNs is very useful subject to study. In future, it may help in redefining the network structures and standards. Gateway selection in WMNs has significance in optimizing the performance of the network and in distribution of network traffic. [11] Selection of different routers in a WMN will lead to achieve different throughputs on capacity of the network. Researches have shown several outcomes in this context. [12] There are several methods and algorithms for efficient routing management, congestion control etc. Literature Review There have been several researches going on for the topic of selection of gateways in wireless mesh networks. The main problem of gateway selection is about selecting the right access points in the wireless mesh network as gateways to the Internet. So that, the objective function of minimization of transmission of total traffic through the gateways is optimized. The reduction in the amount of transmitted traffic will reduce the chances of link failure and delay in communication. The problem is solved by setting an objective function by assuming that each of the nodes in the mesh network will have some demand for network traffic. Mathematically the selection problem can be expressed as, given the interference model of the network and number of gateways as k, the solution will have all k gateways placed in the mesh network. The total through put is maximized from the network. It ensures some degree of fairness is terms of loads among all nodes in the network. A deployment using grids c an implement optimization through a cross layer throughput. The wireless communication technologies have advanced a lot in last decades. At the same time internet has got a significant growth. Wireless mesh networks are evolving due to these changes. Now, network operators face challenges in designing mesh networks effectively. The design of the topology, routing considerations and placement of gateways are main areas to focus in wireless mesh network design. There are different aspects and methods for designing effective wireless mesh networks. These designs considers two possibilities. Either the designs improves performance of an existing network or plan deployment of a new network. A survey on these designs reveals these issues. [13] In the last few decades the number of researches in the field of design, deployment and improvement of performances in wireless mesh networks have been raised significantly. The clients and routers in a wireless mesh network are part of it. The clients have maximum mobility whereas the routers must have minimal mobility. It poses a requirement while selection of nodes as gateways. The routers with minimal mobility forms the backbone of a wireless mesh network. [14] Traditional clients of the wireless mesh network have access to the backbone. Wireless mesh networks can be integrated with other types of networks like cellular network, Internet, sensor based network, IEEE 802.16, IEEE 802.15, IEEE 802.11 etc. The integration is accomplished by bridging and use of gateways by the mesh routers. The clients in a wireless mesh network can be either mobile or static. There may be a mesh network of clients and another mesh network of routers. Wireless mesh networks gives significant advantage s over wireless local area network or WLAN, wireless metropolitan area network or WMAN, wireless personal area network or WPAN, ad hoc networks by overcoming the limitations of these kinds of networks. Wireless mesh networks can deliver better wireless connectivity service to larger geographical areas. In spite of several researches still there are challenges in wireless mesh networks at protocol levels.. The research paper from Akyildiz, Wang and Wang shows a survey of the WMNs. It has outlines different issues with WMNs from protocol design to gateway selection. It also shows the calculation for the theoretical capacity of the network and other protocols. [15], [16] The paper by Papadaki and Friderikos discusses about the issues related to planning and routing optimisation in a wireless and multihop mesh netwrk. The paper is focused on mathematical formulations. It deals with capacitated and uncapacitated selection of gateways and routing in wireless mesh networks. Mathematically, the problem of selection of gateways in a wireless and multihop network is an NP-Complete problem. So, only approximation is possible to this problem. The scholars have extended the formultion of the problem to the capacitated scenrio. There are several evidences that the research shows significant improvents within a very little optimal gap in a realistic netowork. Their works have shown solutions to the problems related to modeling in WMNs, for example restrictions on the number of hops in a routing sub tree, multi rate transmissions, declaration of unreliability is leaves of a routing tree etc.. The main goal of gateway selection in a wireless mesh netowork is optimazation of the performance of the network. The performance can be measured by several metrics and quality of Service or QoS. [17] There are numerous factors that affects the QoS in a wireless mesh netowork. Some of the important ones are, number of gateways, number of nodes under a gateway, location of a gateway in the topology of the network, relay load, faireness in access to the gateway and internet, range of transmission etc. [18] , [19] As it has been already said that the problem of finding the solution to the selection of gateway in a wireless mesh netowork is NP-Complete. So, finidng a solution to the problem by satisfying all factors of the QoS is NP hard. But, a optimal solution, neares to the actual solution can be found out through different approximation methods. There are heuristic algorithms that helps in finding out a polynomial time algorithm for the optimal solutions. In the paper by Drabu and Pe yravi shows such an solution for the problem of selection and placement of gateways in a wireless mesh network. They have used some results from some previous works in the similar field for comparing the sub optimal results with their work.. [20] Research Methods In this research, it will try to address all issues with gateway selection in WMNs, what are the causes and what may be possible countermeasures. For that purpose, there will be primarily extensive literature review on related topics. Also there will be simulations if required. Ethical Issues The research will follow all norms, rules and ethical considerations while carrying out the research process. No information will be collected from unauthorized sources and without proper citation. All details about the simulation and literature reviews will be listed. No results will be stolen from other peoples work. The research will follow all six principles of ethics in research. Those are, Assurance of integrity and quality of research. If required, then it will ask for and provide consent from respective entities. If needed, it will ensure confidentiality of the participants in the research. It will not force any participating entity in the research. The research will be impartial and independent. However, it will use the resources from current and previous searches and academic resources. But all these usage will be properly cited. Facilities and Resources The research will depend heavily on previous and current works on wireless mesh network and other technologies. So, most of the resources will be academic papers, journal and reports. Some of these Data Storage All data related to this project will be handled and stored ethically and securely. It will not intentionally breach any data privacy or protection laws. Timeline The timeline for the research is in appendix 1 Conclusion In this research proposal, it has covered some works on gateway selection problem and then it has stated the research goals, background etc. The proposal also describes the data storage, timeline, facilities and resources of the research. It outlines an overview of the research on selection of the gateway in wireless mesh network problem. The future work is following the proposal and carrying out the research successfully. References [1] J. Xie and X. Wang, "A Survey of Mobility Management in Hybrid Wireless Mesh Networks," IEEE, 2008. [2] M. Portmann and A. A. Pirzada, "Wireless Mesh Networks for Public Safety and Crisis Management Applications," IEEE, 2008. [3] S. Tajima, T. Higashino, N. Funabiki and S. Yoshida, "An Internet Gateway Access-Point Selection Problem for Wireless Infrastructure Mesh Networks," IEEE. [4] D. Benyamina, A. Hafid and M. Gendreau, "Optimal Placement of Gateways in Multi-Hop Wireless Mesh Networks: A Clustering-based Approach.," in IEEE 34th Conference on Local Computer Networks, Switzerland;, 2009. [5] Y. Hu, W. He, S. Yang and Y. Zhou, "Multi-Gateway Multi-Path Routing Protocol for 802.11s WMN," IEEE, 2010. [6] U. Ashraf, S. Abdellatif and G. Juanole, "Gateway Selection in Backbone Wireless Mesh Networks," in WCNC 2009 proceedings, 2009. [7] K. Papadaki and V. Friderikos, "Gateway selection and routing in wireless mesh networks," Computer Networks, vol. 54, p. 319329, 2009. [8] W. Wu, J. Luo and M. Yang, "Gateway placement optimization for load balancing in Wireless Mesh Networks," IEEE, 2009. [9] F. Zeng and Z. Chen, "Load Balancing Placement of Gateways in Wireless Mesh Networks with QoS Constraints," IEEE, 2008. [10] T. Aure and F. Y. Li, "An Optimized Path-Selection Using Airtime Metric in OLSR Networks: Implementation and Testing," IEEE, 2008. [11] B. He, B. Xie and D. P. Agrawal, "Optimizing the Internet Gateway Deployment in a Wireless Mesh Network," IEEE, 2007. [12] W. Liu, H. Nishiyama, N. Kato, Y. Shimizu and Tomoaki, "A Novel Gateway Selection Technique for Throughput Optimization in Configurable Wireless Mesh Networks," International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 195-203, 2013. [13] D. Benyamina, A. Hafid and M. Gendreau, "Wireless Mesh Networks Design - a survey". [14] E. Bortnikov, I. C. I. Keidar and T. K. A. Vaisman, "AQoS WMN with Mobility Support," Mobile Computing and Communications Review, vol. 12, no. 1. [15] I. F. Akyildiz, X. Wang and W. Wang, "Wireless mesh networks: a survey," Computer Networks, p. 445487, 2005. [16] P. H. Pathak and R. Dutta, "A Survey of Network Design Problems and," North Carolina State University. [17] Y. Drabu and H. Peyravi, "Gateway Placement with QoS Constraints in Wireless Mesh Networks," IEEE, 2008. [18] J. J. Galvez, P. M. Ruiz and A. F. Skarmeta, "Responsive on-line gateway load-balancing for wireless mesh networks," Ad Hoc Networks, 2012. [19] B. Aoun, R. Boutaba, Y. Iraqi and G. Kenward, "Gateway Placement Optimization in Wireless Mesh Networks With QoS Constraints," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 14, no. 11, pp. 2127-2136, 2006. [20] E. Ancillotti, R. Bruno and M. Conti, "Load-balanced Routing and Gateway Selection in Wireless Mesh Networks: Design,Implementation and Experimentation," IEEE, 2010. 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