IEEE 802.11s

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IEEE 802.11s is a standardized sub-specification of the IEEE 802.11 industry standard for wireless network communication. The aim of 802.11s is a manufacturer-independent standard for setting up wireless, meshed networks . In contrast to current mesh networks, which are based on existing 802.11a / b / g standard hardware and mesh routing software working at higher network levels, mesh routing with 802.11s takes place in the MAC layer (hence from View of the OSI reference model a “MAC relaying”) and is therefore much more efficient, especially with regard to hardware requirements and energy consumption.

history

The IEEE working group was formed in 2003 to define the 802.11s standard for wireless MESH networks. From this, two drafts, WI-MESH and SEEMesh, emerged by March 2006, which were then to be combined to a compromise.

At the beginning of 2011 there were still 72 open comments. The adoption of the 802.11s standard has already been postponed several times, most recently in January 2011 to September of the same year.

While the standard had not yet been approved, PacketHop implemented the first draft of 802.11s as a firmware module in May 2008. This supports the Atheros WLAN chipset.

Overview of the standardization project

Network formation / exploration

This includes the formation of the network (i.e. how new network nodes connect to the network, etc.), the exploration of neighborhood relationships between the nodes and multi-channel exploration.

Routing

The routing should at 802.11s in the MAC held layer, as required in this information be available directly. However, it should be transparent for the overlying layer. In draft 1.07 from mid-2007 there is only one binding routing protocol, namely the Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol (HWMP), which must be implemented if the standard is to be complied with. The previously optional RA-OLSR is no longer part of the standard.

HWMP is a combination of two routing approaches.

In order to be able to handle the mobile part of a MESH network, the reactive AODV is extended by a metric. A proactive, tree-based process is used for the fixed part of the network.
In contrast to OLSR, not all network nodes know their neighborhood relationship or the complete topology. In the mobile part, the routes are only determined when required; in the fixed part of the network, all routes to a certain root node are known, but not routes between the normal nodes.

MAC

Beaconing, synchronization, procedures for channel access control, local congestion control and power management are implemented on this layer.

The 802.11e QoS standard is being expanded.

safety

Security in 802.11s is essentially based on the previous security standard 802.11i .

Others

Compatibility with existing 802.11a / b / g devices should be guaranteed.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IEEE STANDARD 802.11s-2011 , accessed October 1, 2011
  2. ↑ IEEE P802.11 - TASK GROUP S - MEETINGS UPDATE , accessed March 4, 2011