Community Healthcare Mesh Network Engineering in White Space Frequencies

Abstract

The transition from analog to digital television has availed new spectrum called white space, which can be used to boost the capacity of wireless networks on an opportunistic basis. One sector in which there is a need to use white space frequencies is the healthcare sector because of existent protocols which are using it and the white space frequency is not as crowded as Wi-Fi. However, design simulations of wireless communication networks in white space frequencies have revealed dense network topology because of better signal propagation and penetration properties of white space frequencies. Consequently, communication networks designed in white space frequencies will require topology reduction for better communication and routing. Therefore, this paper proposes a link-based topology reduction algorithm to reduce a dense mesh network topology designed in white space frequencies into a sparse mesh network topology. The paper also proposes a network optimization function to introduce a hierarchical backbone-based network topology from the sparse network topology for better scalability. Performance evaluation on the proposed designs show that the designs can guide network engineers to select the most relevant performance metrics during a network feasibility study in white space frequencies, aimed at guiding the implementation process.