Comparative Analysis of Performance Routing Metrics for Multi-radio Wireless Mesh Networks

Traditional Ad Hoc network wireless communication in the past years have contributed tremendously to the dawn of wireless mesh networks (WMNs) which have so far been able to provide a significant improvement in capacity and scalability. Routing metrics which form the basic element for the routing protocol in this innovative communication technology is a call for concern as they must take into consideration the wireless medium network characteristics in order to provide a optimum appreciable QoS performance. In the past many single-radio routing metrics have been proposed for Ad Hoc networks which are not compatible with the multi-radio routing scenario demanded by WMNs. In our work, we provide a comparative analysis of most recently proposed multi-radio routing metrics for WMNs. We begin by providing an overview of the features of a wireless mesh network thereby presenting a better understanding of some of the research challenges of WMNs. Also, since single-radio routing forms the basis of multi-radio routing, we in this regard provide a review of some single-radio routing metrics. In our comparative analysis, an overview of routing protocols for WMNs is provided enabling an understanding of the demands to be included in a routing metric to ensure efficient routing in WMNs since different routing protocols may impose different demands; we then identify the requirements of multi-radio routing metrics from which we base our comparative analysis