A novel cross-layer routing algorithm in wireless mesh network

Routing in Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is challenging because of the unpredictable variations of the wireless environment. Traditional mechanisms have been proved that the routing performance would get deteriorated and ideal metrics must be explored. Cross-layer approach for routing has been paid more attention to in the recent. Its objective is to provide the network layer with an overall view of information from underlying layers when routing. So a path with reasonable delay, throughput and reliability can be selected timely. This paper introduces a new cross-layer metric for ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing in WMN based on the information obtained from wireless channel conditions from physical layer, link quality and congestion from MAC layer. Simulation results have demonstrated that this new metric can greatly improve AODV routing performance in terms of end-to-end delay and throughput in contrast to the traditional metric of minimum hop.