A GA-Based Simulation System for WMNs: Performance Analysis of WMN-GA System for Different WMN Architectures Considering DCF and EDCA

Abstract

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are attracting a lot of attention from wireless network researchers. Node placement problems have been investigated for a long time in the optimization field due to numerous applications in location science. In our previous work, we evaluated WMN-GA system which is based on Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to find an optimal location assignment for mesh routers. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of two WMN architectures considering throughput, delay, jitter and fairness index metrics. For simulations, we used ns-3 and Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR). We compare the performance for Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) for normal distribution of mesh clients by sending multiple Constant Bit Rate (CBR) flows in the network. The simulation results show that the throughput of I/B WMN is higher than Hybrid WMN architecture. The delay and jitter of Hybrid WMN is a lower compared with I/B WMN. The fairness index of 10 and 20 flows is higher than 30 flows for both architectures. In I/B architecture the fairness index of DCF is higher than EDCA. However, for Hybrid WMN, the fairness index of EDCA is higher than DCF.