MeshClusters: All-wireless Infrastructure Mesh Networks

In the world of ubiquitous mobile wireless networks that is taking shape, wireless mesh networks are emerging as a significant new technology. Their promise of rapid deployability and reconfigurability makes them suitable for important applications such as disaster
recovery, homeland security, transient networks in convention centers, hard-to-wire buildings such as museums, unfriendly terrains, and rural areas with high costs of network deployment. They can provide large coverage area, reduce ``dead-zones'' in wireless coverage, lower costs
of backhaul connections for base-stations, and improve aggregate 3G, 802.11 cell throughput and help reduce end-user battery life.

We distinguish two kinds of mesh networks: (a) Client-mesh networks  wherein end-devices (such as PDAs, laptops) participate in packet forwarding. These networks are infrastructure less  in the sense, operation of client-mesh is not managed and monitored by a service provider. They are useful for opportunistic or predictable store-and-forward message transport. Alternately, when used only for packet forwarding for multi-radio clients (for example, with 3G and 802.11 interfaces), they improve coverage and data rates for wide area cellular service. (b) Infrastructure-mesh networks wherein the end-devices do not participate in the packet relay and the multi-radio relay nodes are part of the network infrastructure. Our work primarily focuses on this kind of mesh networks.