RedMesh: A WiFi-Direct Network Formation Algorithm for Large-Scale Scenarios
Dec 2020
Device-to-device (D2D) communication enables collaboration between mobile devices, even when no communication infrastructure is available. In this context, WiFi-Direct presents itself as a technology able to provide D2D communication at WiFi speed and coverage range. Although its specification only addresses communication inside small groups (typically 8 devices), some solutions for inter-group communication have been proposed, and, atop such solutions, automatic network formation algorithms are now appearing. These initial proposals are, however, neither efficient for large scale scenarios, due to the use of broadcasts, nor effective, as they offer limited connectivity. In this paper we propose RedMesh, the first algorithm that creates mesh networks of off-the-shelf WiFi-Direct enabled devices, establishing connections that exclusively use unicast communication. The algorithm proved to be very effective, achieving full connectivity in 97.28% of the 1 250 tested scenarios with up to 250 nodes, in a total of 187 500 nodes.
