Using Multiple Metrics with the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) can be used in many different applications. However, they lack standards and, as a consequence, a number of issues must still be addressed to ensure the proper functioning of these networks. Amongst these issues, routing is this paper’s main concern. Thus, we propose the use of multiple metrics with the proactive Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol, in order to provide quality of service routing. Even though it has already been proved that routing with multiple metrics is an NP-complete problem, we show how the techniques of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Pruning may be combined to perform multiple-metric routing, offering the best available routes based on the considered metrics. A study on the performance of the metrics considered for the proposal is also carried out in the NS simulator.