Software Defined Networking-Assisted Routing In Wireless Mesh Networks

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a recent model of networking architecture which splits the network control from data forwarding functions. Most SDN solutions have in their scope the wired networks, but more recently, some attempts have been made to adapt SDN architecture for the context of wireless mesh networks (WMNs). In the present paper, we examine whether the use of the SDN paradigm in WMNs can help overcome certain limitations of the classic routing algorithms. To that end, we propose a new deployment architecture which exploits the main benefits of this paradigm: faster routing convergence and optimal path identification and takes advantage of multiple communication interfaces that most wireless devices already possess to split the signalling and data transfer. We then propose an hybrid management scheme applicable which mixes our SDN approach with a conventional distributed protocol (OLSR in our case). Through NS3 simulations, an improvement of 20% in both packet delivery ratio and lost packets was observed. Therefore, we can claim that the SDN controller can positively assist the distributed routing protocol operations.