International Journal of Advanced Computer Science, Vol. 2, No. 4, Pp. 152-156, Apr. 2012.

Manuscript
Received:
27, Jun., 2011
Revised:
11,Dec., 2011
Accepted:
27,Mar., 2011
Published:
15, May, 2012

Keywords
wireless mesh
network,
ring-based
architecture,
capacity and
coverage,
optimal
allocation,
AbstractThe wireless mesh network
(WMN) is an emerging technology to
provide a solution to the special
commercial uses. In this paper, we
research on the performance of the
ring-base architecture wireless mesh
network. The relation on coverage,
capacity and number of rings for a fix ring
width will be discussed. Furthermore, we
deploy the mix integer non-linear
programming (MINLP) to give an optimal
allocation for the ring width of the wireless
mesh network catering to different
requirement for traffic load.


1. Introduction
As an emerging technology, the wireless mesh network
(WMN) is an effective way to providing the broadband
service for next generation wireless network. Different from
traditional wireless network, WMN is self-organized and
self-configured. In this network, the nodes automatically
establish and maintain network. Thus users of this network
can draw benefit from this feature such as robust network
connectivity, low maintain costs, stable service coverage and
so on. Especially, the capacity of a wireless mesh network is
higher than the traditional network because of its large
coverage area.
Nevertheless, as a multi-hop network, wireless mesh
network will induce heavy relay traffic load and degrade its
quality of service (QoS) like delay and jitter while extending
coverage. Specifically, deploying a multi-hop method can
improve the end-users throughput and network coverage. All
the users can be served by the nearby relay nodes if they are
not in the high throughput (HT) state [1]-[16]. As a
consequent, a high-rate and robust radio link will be
provided for the end-user. However, this way may bring a
high density of relay nodes, which causes a lower quality of
service and higher delay.
Thus the coverage extending and throughput improving


This work was supported by the college of communication engineering,
Jilin University.
Linhan Feng, Zhihong Qian, and Dongcheng Jin are with Jilin
University of communication engineering facility (feng.linhan@jl.
China.mobile.com; drqzh@163.com;jin.dongcheng@jl. chinamobile .com)
are two contradictory goals in a multi-hop wireless mesh
network. The relay traffic load degrades the throughput of
the network as the number of hops increases, which produces
the collision from a large number of end-users. Therefore it
is important to design a scalable wireless mesh network
under the condition not affecting the overall capacity of the
network.
This paper firstly introduces the wireless mesh network
on ring-based architecture as shown in Fig. 1. The capacity
and coverage for different end-users traffic load will be
discussed. On that basis, the goal of this paper is to get an
optimal tradeoff among capacity and coverage range by
deploying the mix integer non-linear programming (MINLP)
to allocate the width of each ring.
2. WMN on Ring-Based Architecture
Figure 1 shows the scalable wireless mesh network on
ring based architecture. From the figure, we can know the
central access point AP
0
plays a role that connecting to the
Backbone network through wireless or wired connection.
Each mesh node will connect to the central access point AP
0

by a multi-hop way. And every relay node can forward the
data from the end-users to the central access point AP
0
. By
this architecture mesh network, the work for cabling
engineering can be reduced heavily.

Backbone
network
Central access point
Mesh node
Wireless connection
Wired connection

Fig. 1. Ring-based scalable wireless mesh network.

We now consider a multi-channel wireless mesh work.
In this network, each mesh cell is divided into several rings,
denoted by A
i
, i=1, 2, , n. The end-users in the ring A
i
will
Research on Performance of Ring-Based Wireless
Mesh Network
Linhan Feng, Zhihong Qian, & Dongcheng Jin
Feng et al.: Research on Performance of Ring-based Wireless Mesh Network
International Journal Publishers Group (IJPG)


153
forward the data to the central access point by i hops. We
assume each node can transmit and receive data in the same
time. In other word, each node has two radio interfaces and
the user in ring A
i
communicates with the user in A
i+1
or A
i-1

in the different frequency channel f
i+1
or f
i-1
respectively.
The coverage range of the multi-hop is scalable as the
number of users increasing because the problem of the user
collision in the mesh network can be solved via
multichannel assignment strategy.
A. Traffic load in ring-based wireless mesh network
In the ring-based architecture wireless mesh network,
the traffic load of each mesh node are composed by
producing itself and relaying from others. Assume all mesh
nodes in ring A
i
share the overall relay traffic from nodes in
ring A
i+1
and let the end-user density is . Then the average
number of mesh nodes S
i
in ring A
i
can be written by (Equ.
1) and (Equ. 2) as shown in the following:
2
1 1 1
S a r t = = (Equ. 1)
2 2
1
( ) 1, 2,...,
i i i i
S a r r i n t

= = = (Equ. 2)
where a
i
and r
i
r
i-1
are area and width of the ring Ai
respectively. Let R
D
and R
i
represent the traffic load
generated by each node and the overall traffic load carried
by each node in ring A
i
respectively. Then R
i
can be
expressed by (Equ. 3):
1 1 1
( / ) ( / 1)
n
i i i i D j i D j i
R S S R R S S R
+ + = +
= + = +

(Equ. 3)
for the outer-most ring A
n
, R
n
= R
D
.

Central access point
Mesh node
Wireless connection
1
( ) H d
2
( ) H d
3
( ) H d
4
( ) H d
1
A
2
A
4
A
3
A

Fig. 2. Radio link capacity between mesh nodes on ring WMN.

B. Interference model and fixed channel assignment
In a multi-channel network [9], dynamical frequency
assignment improves the efficiency of the channel usage in
the condition that there is a multi-channel MAC protocol
which is always very complex. However, in the previous
ring-based architecture wireless mesh network, the fix
frequency planning is very simple and we only need to
consider the width of each ring to assure the channel
frequency reuse distance is long enough.
Link interference model is used to analyze the
interference when using a certain channel. We define the set
of interference is Intf(i). Fig. 3 is an example to demonstrate
it explicitly. In the network, there are 5 links working on
channel-3, but the set of interference of Link A<->B has 4
links (Link A<->B is included). The measurement of the
interference for Link i can be simply calculated by the
following equation:
( ) i j j Intf i and i j
I T
e =
=

(Equ. 4)

3
4
3
4
4 1
1
3
2
1
2
2
3
3
R
R
R is the Interference Range
A
B

Fig. 3. Interference model.

Fixed allocation schemes pre-assign each channel to
each interface, allocation scheme stays the same until the
algorithm is reactivated. Many schemes of this kind have
been put forward. And Greedy algorithm is involved in
most of them. The advantage is that no overhead of channel
coordination and no need to modify the current MAC
protocols. The disadvantage is low flexibility to adapt to
dynamic business. Ripple effect is unwanted and algorithms
should try to reduce and avoid it. See Fig. 4, there is no
common channel between the nodes a and b, so the
connectivity is not assured. In order to avoid it, the one of
link 1,4,3,8 should be chosen to be assigned to the link for a
and b. But no matter which link is chosen, there must be
another nodes allocation scheme should be changed,
afterwards another nodes allocation scheme change is
activated, like the water rippling.

c
a
1
4
4
6
b d
6
6 7 8
7
3
3
2
5

c
a
1
4
4
6
d
b
6
6 7 1
7
3
3
2
5
1

Fig. 4. Illustration of ripple effect.
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science, Vol. 2, No. 4, Pp. 152-156, Apr. 2012.
International Journal Publishers Group (IJPG)

154
3. Capacity and Coverage of
Ring-Based WMN
A. Analytic throughput model between mesh nodes
The analytic throughput model between mesh nodes is
based on the CSMA MAC protocol with RTS/CTS. IEEE
802.11s is the standard to define the behavior on MAC layer
for wireless mesh network. However, IEEE 802.11s has not
been published which means it needs to be improved by
some points like QoS control frame. Hence in this section,
we deploy IEEE 802.11a wireless local area network model
as an example. A cross-layer analytic model to evaluate
the link capacity between the mesh nodes is developed in
[4].
As shown in Fig. 2, the radio link capacity H
i
(d) in
ring-based architecture wireless mesh network is a function
of the separation d between the two mesh nodes in adjacent
rings. The typically value of coverage range and radio link
capacity with IEEE 802.11a are illustrated on Table 1 and
the fitting curve is shown in Fig. 5 (packet length = 1500
octets and packet error rate (PER) = 10%).

TABLE 1
TRANSMISSION PERFORMANCE OF IEEE 802.11A
Data link rate(Mbit/s) 54 36 24 18 12 6
Indoor range
a
(m)[12] 13 19 26 33 39 50
Outdoor range
a
(m)[12] 30 83 143 180 234 304
Link capacity (Mbps) 27.1 21.2 15.7 12.6 9.0 4.8
a: 40 mW with 6 dBi antenna.

Fig. 5. IEEE 802.11a link capacity performance at a separation distance
between nodes.
B. Coverage and capacity analyze for fix ring width
The optimal tradeoff between coverage and capacity of
ring wireless mesh network is concerned in this section. We
can formulate this issue as a mix integer non-linear
programming (MINLP) problem. The decision variables of
this problem are number of the rings n and the radius for
each ring r
1
, r
2
, , r
n
. And we want to get an optimal
coverage range for a mesh cell. However, the coverage is
relevant on the capacity of the mesh cell in this problem. So
we need to assume the problem of the user collision as the
coverage range extending can be solved. In this scalable
ring mesh cell, as the above discussion, we can use an
excellent frequency planning way to avoid this collision
problem as the coverage range extending, which is
relatively easy to realize in the ring-based architecture
wireless mesh network. Thus the coverage range and
capacity can achieve the optimal value concurrently because
the capacity is increasing as the end-user increasing in a
mesh cell. Hence, the optimal system parameters on
ring-based wireless mesh network can be solved by the
following equations:
1 2
, , ,...,
coverage
n
n r r r n
Optimal Max r = (Equ. 5)
and the constrained conditions of this optimal problem are
illustrated in the following:
( )
i i
H d R > (Equ. 6)
min 1 max i i
d r r d

s s (Equ. 7)
(Equ. 6) shows the radio link capacity on lowest rate H
i
(d) in ring A
i
is greater than the overall traffic load R
i

carried by each node in ring A
i
. The parameter d represents
the separation between the two mesh nodes in adjacent
rings. This constrained condition guarantees minimum
throughput for each end-user.
Eq. (7) shows the ring width is less than the maximum
value of the reception distance d
max
and greater than the
average distance separation d
min
between two adjacent mesh
nodes where
min
1/ d = ( is the user node density). This
constrained condition gives the limit on the hop distance
due to the node density.
On the basis of the consideration above, we can analyze
the optimal coverage range and capacity in a ring-based
wireless mesh cell. In this section, we assume the width of
each ring in a mesh cell is same where
1 i i
r r r

=
(with
1
r r = ) and the mesh nodes distribute uniformly with
2
(0.01) = nodes per meter which means the average
distance between neighboring nodes
min
1/ 100 d = =
meters. According to [12], we can get the maximum
reception distance
max
300 d = meters with the minimum
frame payload size 425 octets on eight physical modes in
IEEE 802.11a wireless local network. Under the above
conditions, we investigate coverage range and capacity of
the mesh cell for different traffic load generated by each
node where R
D
=0.5Mbit/s, 0.8Mbit/s and 1Mbit/s. The
results are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7.
From Fig. 6, we can see the cell coverage range versus
the number of rings in a mesh cell for different R
D
. For R
D
=
0.5 Mbps, we can achieve the maximum number of rings is
6 but it is not an optimal solution. The maximum coverage
range for R
D
= 0.5 Mbps is 640m with n = 5. The multi-hop
ring mesh network improves the coverage by 113%
compare with the single-hop network (n = 1). For higher
traffic per user R
D
= 0.8 Mbps and R
D
= 1.0Mbps, the
optimal number of ring n is 4 and the coverage increase by
Feng et al.: Research on Performance of Ring-based Wireless Mesh Network
International Journal Publishers Group (IJPG)


155
73% and 63% respectively.

Fig. 6. Mesh cell coverage versus the number of rings under different
demanded traffic per user.


Fig. 7. Mesh cell capacity versus the number of rings under different
demanded traffic per user.

Fig. 7 shows the cell capacity versus the number of
rings under different R
D
. Compared with the single hop
network, the multi-hop ring-based mesh network bring
355%, 201%, 167% increase in cell capacity for
R
D
=0.5Mbit/s, 0.8Mbit/s and 1Mbit/s respectively. More
importantly, as mesh cell coverage extending, the overall
cell capacity for low traffic load per user (R
D
=0.5Mbit/s) is
closer to it for high users traffic (R
D
=0.8Mbit/s and
1.0Mbit/s). This means we achieve the capacity and
coverage range concurrently on ring-based architecture.
C. Optimal allocation for ring width
In the above discussion, we analyze the enhancement on
coverage and capacity of a mesh cell of fix ring width. This
condition brings a constraint on the optimal solution
although it is easier to be deployed in the actual system. If
we make each ring width to be the maximum value under
the same constrained condition like shown in (Equ. 8), we
can get the optimal coverage and capacity of the mesh cell.
1 2
, , ,..., 1
n
n r r r i i
Max r r

(Equ. 8)

Fig. 8. Coverage of a mesh cell versus the number of rings for fix and
various ring width under RD = 0.8Mbps.

Fig. 8 shows coverage of a mesh cell versus the number
of rings for fix and various ring width under R
D
= 0.8Mbps.
We simulate the system and get the optimal ring width
allocation
1
[240,140,150,160]
i i
r r

= meters for n = 4
under R
D
= 0.8Mbps. Compared with the fix ring width, the
coverage on various ring width increase by 33% for n = 4
which is an effective improvement on coverage and
capacity.
4. Conclusion and Further Work
In this paper, we analyze the capacity and coverage on
multi-hop ring based wireless mesh network. We firstly
introduce the architecture of the ring-based mesh network.
Then capacity and coverage on ring wireless mesh network
for fix ring width are derived by deploying MINLP method.
Besides, we also allocate the different width of each ring to
get the optimal solution to trade-off among capacity and
coverage.
Our further work is to consider more effect of QoS and
power resource on this issue. The delay and jitter is not to
be considered in this paper which may affect the result with
coverage extending. The power is also important for
wireless mesh network so that we need to induce
appropriate power control mechanism. In addition, the new
IEEE 802.11s MAC layer protocol is necessary to be
deployed in the further work.

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Linhan Feng was born in 1981. She is
currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in
Jilin University. Her current research
interests include wireless mesh network
and wireless communication system.


Zhihong Qian was born in 1958. He
currently is the professor in Jilin
University and works with wireless
network and communication
engineering group. He is the author or
coauthor of more than 80 national and
international papers and 3 monographs,
and also collaborated in about 20
research projects. His current research interests include
ad-hoc network, wireless sensing network, Internet of
things, blue tooth and Zigbee theory and applications.


Dongcheng Jin was born in Hunan,
China 1979. He is currently pursuing
his Ph.D. degree in Jilin University. His
current research interests include
wireless mesh network and wireless
communication system.