Comparative Study of MAC Protocols for Wireless Mesh Network

TL;DR

This paper systematically compares various IEEE 802.11 standards and MAC protocols for wireless mesh networks, analyzing their performance, design requirements, and open research challenges to guide future developments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review and analysis of IEEE 802.11 standards and MAC protocols specifically for wireless mesh networks, highlighting their strengths, limitations, and future research directions.

Findings

IEEE 802.11ac offers higher performance with fewer interferences.

Design requirements vary for multiple peer-to-peer connections.

The study identifies key open research issues in MAC layer for WMN.

Abstract

Wireless networking is encouraged by the constant enhancement of sensors' ability and wireless communication. To provide service quality support for multimedia viz. audio and video streams, the IEEE 802.11e MAC (Media Access Control) improves basic 802.11 MAC. IEEE 802.11 standard series such as IEEE 802.11a, b, g, n, p, and ac have been promoted and specified in the current communications and connection development. Each standard has functionality that matches the kind of applications for which the standard is intended. IEEE 802.11ac has better performance with fewer interferences and achieves gigabits per second capacity transfer rates. This paper discusses the comparative examination of the IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11p, and IEEE 802.11ac standards which increase accuracy and performance pertaining to the IEEE 802.11 standard. In this paper, we investigate the design requirements for numerous simultaneous peer-to-peer connections. Further, this study offers a systematic review and analysis of the MAC layer in WMN (Wireless Mesh Network) and also highlights their open research issues and challenges. Finally, this paper discusses various potential directions for future research in this area with an emphasis on their strengths and limitations.