WiMAX mesh based back-haul for tactical military and disaster area networks

Tactical Military and Disaster Area Communications require the establishment of on-the-fly wireless ad-hoc networks in diverse terrains with minimal set up time and reasonable Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees. In this paper, we study the architecture of a WiMAX mesh based back-haul network to replace the typical TDM based wire-line backhaul of a WiMAX Area Service Network (ASN). In particular, the paper presents the detailed design of a MAC layer frame structure based on Scalable OFDMA, the associated cluster-head election algorithm, and a distributed scheduling algorithm required for the back-haul mesh solution. The performance of the system has been studied using a custom-built discrete event simulator and performance results presented for varying traffic types including voice and video. © 2012 IEEE.