Dynamic Power Control for Wireless Backbone Mesh Networks: a Survey

With the tremendous growth of wireless networks into the next generation to provide better services, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have emerged to offer ubiquitous communication and seamless broadband applications. WMNs are hybrid networks composed of a mixture of static Wireless Mesh Routers (WMRs) and mobile Wireless Mesh Clients (WMCs) interconnected via wireless links to form a multi-hop wireless Ad Hoc network (WANET). WMNs are self-organized, self-configured, and reliable against single points of failures, and robust against RF interference, obstacles or power outage. This is because WMRs forming wireless backbone mesh networks (WBMNs) are built on advanced physical technologies. Such nodes perform both accessing and forwarding functionality. They are expected to carry huge volumes of traffic and be “on power” at all times. While trying to increase network capacity, problems of the dynamic transmission power control (DTPC) arise in such networks. Such problems include RF Interference, Connectivity and energy-depletion. While there are numerous studies on this topic, contributions in the context of WBMNs are still challenging but interesting research areas. This paper provides an overview of the DTPC algorithms central to the WBMNs framework. The open issues are also highlighted.