SDN-Enabling Multihop Wireless Networks

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Multihop wireless networks (MWNs) have established themselves in a range of domains: vehicular ad-hoc networks, mobile ad-hoc networks, wireless mesh networks, wireless sensor networks, home networking, or even as extensions in cellular networks. The co-operative nature of the nodes and the absence of a fixed infrastructure make them very attractive where fast deployment, low cost, or support for strong mobility is required. Networking protocols for such networks have been designed with the assumption that nodes need to co-operate to achieve network-wide goals, with all nodes involved in operating and managing the network.******At the same time, wired networks are seeing a paradigm shift towards Software-Defined Networking (SDN). SDN proposes a network architecture with a (logically) central controller that collects information about the whole network. This central entity makes network-wide decisions about routes and resource usage. The network routers and switches become much simpler and consequently cheaper. They are instructed by the SDN controller how to forward packets, removing the requirement for them to be involved in any network-wide decisions. The goal is to facilitate the introduction of new and innovative services, to simplify network management, to allow for better/more optimized use of resources, and to reduce the costs of offering communication services.******This SDN paradigm is fundamentally different from the distributed network protocols prelevant in today's MWNs. However, SDN is quite promising for such networks as well. WMNs, for example, are severely resource-limited (bandwidth, energy, etc.). The central controller, having global knowledge of the network, can optimize resource usage network-wide. Yet efficiently supporting this paradigm over high-latency, lossy, and bandwidth-constrained wireless links is not trivial. In our research, we are exploring how to best deploy the SDN architecture in multihop wireless networks. The key idea is to apply various clustering approaches to reduce overhead, improve responsiveness, and provide robustness. We will demonstrate the advantages of our proposed designs in a number of ways. We will apply and evaluate popular SDN techniques such as traffic engineering or network slicing. We will also design and implement new global optimizations that address the unique challenges of MWNs.******The research outcomes will simplify the deployment and increase the flexibility of future MWNs. It will enable us to apply many of the advances made in wired SDNs to MWNs. As a result, it will become easier for ISPs to offer rural mesh networks that provide Internet access in remote communities or for vendors to offer new services in home networks. Furthermore, managing MWNs via SDN will make it easier for telcos to integrate them as access networks with next-generation core networks that are similarly based on SDN.***