PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF INTEGRATED WIFI/WIMAX MESH NETWORK WITH DIFFERENT MODULATION SCHEMES

Wireless communication technology has been growing remarkably well day by day. Wi-Fi has led wireless communication to a long way due to its high data rate capacity. Wi-Fi has a high penetration in market but it is connected to Internet or other networks with wired connections making its deployment complex and expensive. WiMAX, on the other hand, is new emerging wireless technology which provides wider coverage area but its deployment is also expensive. To overcome the individual shortcomings and using the capabilities of Wi-Fi and WiMAX, we have proposed an Integrated Wi-Fi/WiMAX network with mesh capabilities to form wireless mesh network. In this paper we are using mesh topology at Wi-Fi/WiMAX Routers (WWRs) so that WiMAX SS, inbuilt in WWRs, can communicate directly with each other without the intervention of WiMAX Base Station. The transmission is carried under influence of AWGN channel and propagation path loss. Wi-Fi/WiMAX mesh network is simulated and its performance is evaluated by Bit Error Rate with respect to Signal to Noise ratio and distance between WiMAX SS for different modulation schemes and distances between Wi-Fi AP and stations