Wireless networking is becoming more popular and used, wireless networks are required for developing new environments, and to enable the users of the wireless devices to connect with other networks. A multi hop wireless infrastructure can be used to integrate wireless nodes together forming a bigger network, and giving access to fixed network infrastructures like internet via multiple wireless hops.
Wireless LANs and routing techniques, used in ad hoc networks, can be used in such a network. We will use the IEEE 802.11 standard, extended with the power control to optimize the performance of the whole network.
This work focuses on the Medium Access Control (MAC) mechanism, through Carrier Sense Multiple Accesses with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA). By using sufficient power for data exchange and routing packets entirely, the network is able to have multiple transmissions to be done simultaneously, and reduce the interface between transmitting nodes. And for the Routing process, the routing algorithm uses paths as efficient as possible in terms of power, transmission speed and number of hops.
The implementation part of this work has been done using OPNET modeler simulator, we used different models of path loss, traffic distributions, and topologies. The results show higher performance when using power control over data packets and control signals, and higher throughput when using less interference models. For the different distributions of nodes in the network, we noticed very high throughputs in the long chains, and the network grids where the distances between nodes are symmetric.