Improving the Performance of IEEE802.11s Networks using Directional Antennas over Multi-Radio/Multi- Channel Implementation – The Research Challenges

The IEEE802.11s standard is a variety of Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs), which features infrastructure-less flexible network configurations, is attracting attention as an elemental technology for future ubiquitous networks consisting of various types of nodes built on ad-hoc basis. To solve problems like throughput degradation, delay and fairness, an enhanced Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol may be required taking the advantage of directional antenna (DA) and cross-layer mechanisms. This paper explores in particular the research challenges to improve the performance of WMNs. Analyzing the trend, we are confident towards an enhanced wireless mesh networks performance by means of utilizing directional antennas and cross layer mechanism for the Access Points (APs).