A Review of Cluster-Based Congestion Control Protocols in Wireless Mesh Networks
Packet loss in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) is due to
congestion and probably due to high bit error rate caused by
interference, link and node failures. Presently, congestion
control and routing protocols in WMNs are not seen to have
tamed this recurrent problem of congestion being experience
most times in the wireless network. Routing techniques may
lead to a congestive scenario and the congestion control
should detect and probably avoid such situations. The way in
which the congestion is handled may results in longer delay
and more packet loss and a very significant overhead may also
be incurred. Hence, this study takes a closer look at existing
solutions with the application of clustering techniques to solve
routing and congestion control problems because it offers
scalability and reduced overheads. The study further exposes
the weakness and added advantages of some of these cluster
based solutions which can assist researchers to come up with
broader approach to tackle the inherent problems of
congestions and load balancing in an ad hoc network like
WMNs. The paper conclude with a planned future research to
device an appropriate level of tradeoff between computational
overheads of cluster-based routing and high network
throughput, low latency and delay while solving congestion
problems.
Keywords: Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs), Routing, Congestion Control, Load Balancing, Packet Loss, Throughput
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