Multi-channel MAC Protocol of Wireless Mesh Networks Based on Directional Antennas and Time Synchronization Mechanism
It's of imminent importance to build wireless mesh networks as access networks for wireless users in city districts and countryside.This paper describes in detail a new MAC protocol,called Mesh-MAC,that is suited for such networks in terms of efficiency.The protocol is implemented on top of low-cost 802.11 hardware.By a novel network time synchronization mechanism,we realize packet-forwarding in the network based on per link forwarding that is formed by directional antennas.The simulation results indicate that Mesh-MAC protocol achieves much improvement in performance such as throughput and end-to-end delay etc.compared with 802.11 and 2P protocols.