| Summary: | Wireless Mesh Networks are increasingly becoming popular as low cost alternatives to
wired networks for providing broadband access to users (the last mile connectivity). A
key challenge in deploying wireless mesh networks is designing networks with sufficient capacity to meet user demands. Accordingly, researchers have explored various schemes in an effort to build high throughput mesh networks. One of the key technologies that is often employed by researchers to build high throughput wireless mesh networks (WMN) is equipping nodes with smart antennas. By exploiting the advantages of reduced interference and longer transmission paths, smart antennas have been shown to significantly
increase network throughput in WMN. However, there is a need to identify and establish
an upper-bound on the maximum throughput that is achievable by using smart antennas
equipped WMN. Such a bound on throughput is important for several reasons, the most
important of which is identifying the services that can be supported by these technologies.
This thesis begins with a focus on establishing this bound.
Clearly, it is evident that smart-antennas cannot increase network throughput beyond
a certain limit for various reasons including the limitations imposed by existing smart an-
tenna technology itself. However with the spiralling demand for broadband access, schemes
must be explored that can increase network throughput beyond the limit imposed by smart
antennas. An interesting and robust method to achieve this increased throughput is by en-
abling multiple gateways within the network. Since, the position of these gateways within
the network bears a significant influence on network performance, techniques to “opti-
mally” place these gateways within the network must be evolved. The study of multiple
gateway placement in multi-hop mesh networks forms the next focus of this study.
This thesis ends with a discussion on further work that is necessary in this domain.
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