Symbolic Routing for Location-based Services in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks are cost-efficient medium-scale networks that have the potential to serve as an infrastructure for advanced location-based services. As a basis for these services we present a routing algorithm that allows to address intuitive symbolic coordinates. This algorithm is based on a proactively maintained geographic routing structure that mimics the structure of a symbolic location model. Message forwarding is done greedily along short paths defined by a symbolic location model and if this fails, through an hierarchical overlay network built by selected mesh routers. We show how a geocast communication mechanism that allows to send messages to all hosts within a specific location can be implemented with this routing algorithm. In extensive evaluations we show that a low proactive routing overhead allows to achieve high message delivery rates even in case of mobility. Moreover, we show that the paths achieved are only 25% longer than the theoretic optimal paths for a wide range of simulation settings.