Wireless mesh networks consist of mesh routers and mesh clients, where mesh routers have minimal mobility and form a backbone. They provide network access for both mesh and conventional clients. This kind of networks will deliver wireless services for a large variety of applications in personal, local, campus, and metropolitan areas. Latency, bandwidth and more generally QoS matter are the targeted issues for the CITI, but we also investigate autonomous mechanisms in order:
- to allow the spontaneous deployment of the wireless network,
- to allow the self-adaptation (self-healing) to any network topology change,
- to allow adaptive behaviour of the communications protocols stack (PHY/MAC/NET) according to user density, user mobility, interferences, traffic, etc.
- to provide transparent access to the Internet for the end users,
- to enable seamless mobility of the users, i.e. to achieve a handover management compatible with an interactive voice communication.
With a combination of competencies in network architecture, protocol engineering and digital communication, the CITI is well adapted to model, design and evaluate global solution for such dynamic wireless networks.