Admission control with load balancing in IEEE 802.11-based ESS mesh networks

In this paper we study connection admission control (CAC) in IEEE 802.11-based ESS mesh networks. An analytical model is developed for studying the effects of CAC on mesh network capacity. A distributed CAC scheme is proposed, which incorporates load balancing when selecting a mesh path for new connections. Our results show that connection level performance, including both average number of connections and connection blocking probability, can be greatly improved using the proposed mechanism compared to other admission control schemes. Dongmei Zhao received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in June 2002. Since July 2002 she has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada where she is an assistant professor. Dr. Zhao’s research interests include modeling and performance analysis, quality-of-service provisioning, access control and admission control in wireless networks. Dr. Zhao is a member of the IEEE. Jun Zou received his B. Eng. and M. Eng. Degrees from Tianjin University, China in 1999 and 2002, respectively. He worked at Siemens Communication Networks Ltd., Beijing from 2002 to 2004. Currently, he is a PhD. student at McMaster University, Canada. His research interests include wireless networking, routing protocols, architecture of next generation networks and network security. Terence D. Todd received the B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. While at Waterloo Dr. Todd spent 3 years as a Research Associate with the Computer Communications Networks Group (CCNG). He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. At McMaster he has been the Principal Investigator on a number of projects in the optical networks and wireless networking areas. Professor Todd spent 1991 on research leave in the Distributed Systems Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ. He also spent January-December 1998 on research leave at The Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory in Cambridge, England. While at ORL he worked on the piconet project which was an early embedded wireless network testbed. Dr. Todd’s research interests include metropolitan/local area networks, wireless communications and the performance analysis of computer communication networks and systems. Dr. Todd is a past Editor of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking and currently holds the NSERC/RIM/CITO Chair on Pico-Cellular Wireless Internet Access Networks Dr. Todd is a Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario and a member of the IEEE.