JRCAP: A Joint Routing and Channel Assignment Protocol for Multi-radio Multi-channel IEEE 802.11s Mesh Networks

For minimizing contention and interference among co-channel devices, efficient channel selection is essential in 802.11 mesh deployments. The IEEE 802.11 standard provides at least three non overlapping channels. Thus, a node equipped with more than one Network Interface Card can operate on different channels simultaneously. This may increase the aggregate bandwidth available for end users and thereby support a plurality of QoS-sensitive applications. In this work, we propose a joint routing and channel assignment protocol (JRCAP) that defines a density based clustering algorithm for channel allocation (DCCA). DCCA partitions the mesh network into balanced clusters and affects a fixed and static channel to each cluster. Moreover, the JRCAP uses a routing protocol that combines routing and channel allocation for establishing routes and selecting channels for links forming the path. It also uses a new routing metric maximum residual capacity that considers channel diversity, data rate and channel load. We evaluate the performance of the JRCAP through simulation and we compare it to the distributed Hyacinth. Obtained results show that our solution achieves better performance than Hyacinth.