Load Balancing in Mesh Based Wireless Network Using Cluster Re-Configuration Algorithm

Maximizing the network throughput while providing fairness is one of the key challenges in the upcoming Mesh based Wireless Network (MBWN). Unbalanced load in the access point (AP) of infrastructure based MBWN is a critical factor that affects QoS. In order to provide QoS, it is mandatory that the load of APs is balanced. Recent studies on operational MBWN, however, have shown that AP load is often substantially uneven. To optimize such imbalance of load, several load balancing methods have been proposed. These schemes commonly require proprietary software or hardware at the user side for controlling the user-AP association. In this paper we present a new load balancing technique by controlling the size of MBWN cluster (i.e., AP‟s coverage range). The proposed scheme does not require any modification to the users neither the IEEE 802.11 standard. It only requires the ability of dynamically changing the transmission power of the AP beacon messages. We proposed optimal beacon power settings which minimize the load of the most congested AP without disturbing the nodes of the cluster. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed method is comparable with or superior to the best existing association-based methods.