Showing papers on "Wireless mesh network published in 2011"

Distributed Intrusion Detection System in a Multi-Layer Network Architecture of Smart Grids

Abstract: The advent of the smart grid promises to usher in an era that will bring intelligence, efficiency, and optimality to the power grid. Most of these changes will occur as an Internet-like communications network is superimposed on top of the current power grid using wireless mesh network technologies with the 802.15.4, 802.11, and WiMAX standards. Each of these will expose the power grid to cybersecurity threats. In order to address this issue, this work proposes a distributed intrusion detection system for smart grids (SGDIDS) by developing and deploying an intelligent module, the analyzing module (AM), in multiple layers of the smart grid. Multiple AMs will be embedded at each level of the smart grid-the home area networks (HANs), neighborhood area networks (NANs), and wide area networks (WANs)-where they will use the support vector machine (SVM) and artificial immune system (AIS) to detect and classify malicious data and possible cyberattacks. AMs at each level are trained using data that is relevant to their level and will also be able to communicate in order to improve detection. Simulation results demonstrate that this is a promising methodology for supporting the optimal communication routing and improving system security through the identification of malicious network traffic.

Developing ZigBee Deployment Guideline Under WiFi Interference for Smart Grid Applications

Abstract: Smart grid is an intelligent power generation, distribution, and control system. ZigBee, as a wireless mesh networking scheme low in cost, power, data rate, and complexity, is ideal for smart grid applications, e.g., real-time system monitoring, load control, and building automation. Unfortunately, almost all ZigBee channels overlap with wireless local area network (WLAN) channels, resulting in severe performance degradation due to interference. In this paper, we aim to develop practical ZigBee deployment guideline under the interference of WLAN. We identify the “Safe Distance” and “Safe Offset Frequency” using a comprehensive approach including theoretical analysis, software simulation, and empirical measurement. In addition, we propose a frequency agility-based interference avoidance algorithm. The proposed algorithm can detect interference and adaptively switch nodes to “safe” channel to dynamically avoid WLAN interference with small latency and small energy consumption. Our proposed scheme is implemented with a Meshnetics ZigBit Development Kit and its performance is empirically evaluated in terms of the packet error rate (PER) using a ZigBee and Wi-Fi coexistence test bed. It is shown that the empirical results agree with our analytical results. The measurements demonstrate that our design guideline can efficiently mitigate the effect of WiFi interference and enhance the performance of ZigBee networks.

OpenFlow for Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract: everal protocols for routing and forwarding in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) have been proposed, such as AODV, OLSR or B.A.T.M.A.N. However, providing support for e.g. flow-based routing where flows of one source take different paths through the network is hard to implement in a unified way using traditional routing protocols. OpenFlow is an emerging technology which makes network elements such as routers or switches programmable via a standardized interface. By using virtualization and flow-based routing, OpenFlow enables a rapid deployment of novel packet forwarding and routing algorithms, focusing on fixed networks. We propose an architecture that integrates OpenFlow with WMNs and provides such flow-based routing and forwarding capabilities. To demonstrate the feasibility of our OpenFlow based approach, we have implemented a simple solution to solve the problem of client mobility in a WMN which handles the fast migration of client addresses (e.g. IP addresses) between Mesh Access Points and the interaction with re-routing without the need for tunneling. Measurements from a real mesh testbed (KAUMesh) demonstrate the feasibility of our approach based on the evaluation of forwarding performance, control traffic and rule activation time.

The Evolution of Cellular Backhaul Technologies: Current Issues and Future Trends

Abstract: The rapid increase of the number of mobile subscribers as well as the deployment of 3G technologies are putting strain on mobile backhaul operational expenditures (OPEX) which amount to 20-40% of total mobile operator's OPEX due to their reliance on T1/E1 copper lines. For these reasons, the current backhaul systems, a term commonly used to describe connectivity between base stations and radio controllers, are increasingly integrating more cost-effective, packet switched technologies, especially Ethernet/Internet technologies. In addition, Wi-Fi and WiMAX are emerging as promising backhaul solutions and initial findings have demonstrated their feasibility. However, the notion of network migration unavoidably raises new technical challenges relevant to aspects of TDM and packet network timing synchronization, QoS, and packet efficiency. This survey aims to provide a comprehensive study of state-of-the-art circuit switched and emerging packet switched backhaul technologies based on research articles and standard documents. For packet switched backhaul, we focus on the practically important Pseudowire approaches which are used to transport TDM services over packet switched networks. We also discuss the features and research findings on the use of Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies which illustrate their potential for rapid and cost-efficient backhaul deployment. Finally, we highlight some open issues relevant to timing synchronization in wireless mesh backhaul and femtocells deployments, which offer a rich ground for further research.

A Survey of Network Design Problems and Joint Design Approaches in Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract: Over the last decade, the paradigm of Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) has matured to a reasonably commonly understood one, and there has been extensive research on various areas related to WMNs such as design, deployment, protocols, performance, etc. The quantity of research being conducted in the area of wireless mesh design has dramatically increased in the past few years, due to increasing interest in this paradigm as its potential for the "last few miles", and the possibility of significant wireless services in metropolitan area networks. This recent work has focused increasingly on joint design problems, together with studies in designing specific aspects of the WMN such as routing, power control etc. in isolation. While excellent surveys and tutorials pertaining to WMNs exist in literature, the explosive growth of research in the area of specific design issues, and especially joint design, has left them behind. Our objective in this paper is to identify the fundamental WMN design problems of interference modeling, power control, topology control, link scheduling, and routing, and provide brief overviews, together with a survey of the recent research on these topics, with special stress on joint design methods. We believe this paper will fulfill an outstanding need in informing the interested student and researcher in getting familiar with this abundant recent research area, and starting research.

Survivability Analysis of Next-Generation Passive Optical Networks and Fiber-Wireless Access Networks

Abstract: Passive optical networks (PONs) are currently evolving into next-generation PONs (NG-PONs) which aim at achieving higher data rates, wavelength channel counts, number of optical network units (ONUs), and extended coverage compared to their conventional counterparts. Due to the increased number of stages and ONUs, NG-PONs face significant challenges to provide the same level of survivability like conventional PONs without exceeding the budget constraints of cost-sensitive access networks. Toward this end, partial optical protection, in combination with interconnecting a subset of ONUs through a wireless mesh network (WMN) front-end, are promising solutions to render NG-PONs survivable in a cost-effective manner. In this paper, we present a probabilistic analysis of the survivability of NG-PONs and hybrid fiber-wireless (FiWi) access networks, taking both optical and wireless protection into account. In addition, we propose different selection schemes to wirelessly upgrade a subset of ONUs, and investigate their performance for a wide range of fiber link failure scenarios and different NG-PON topologies.

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks: Current Status and Future Trends

Abstract: Guiding readers through the basics of these rapidly emerging networks to more advanced concepts and future expectations, Mobile Ad hoc Networks: Current Status and Future Trends identifies and examines the most pressing research issues in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). Containing the contributions of leading researchers, industry professionals, and academics, this forward-looking reference provides an authoritative perspective of the state of the art in MANETs. The book includes surveys of recent publications that investigate key areas of interest such as limited resources and the mobility ofmobile nodes. It considers routing, multicast, energy, security, channel assignment, and ensuring quality of service. Also suitable as a text for graduate students, the book is organized into three sections: Fundamentals of MANET Modeling and SimulationDescribes how MANETs operate and perform through simulations and models Communication Protocols of MANETsPresents cutting-edge research on key issues, including MAC layer issues and routing in high mobility Future Networks Inspired By MANETsTackles open research issues and emerging trends Illustrating the role MANETs are likely to play in future networks, this book supplies the foundation and insight you will need to make your own contributions to the field. It includes coverage of routing protocols, modeling and simulations tools, intelligent optimization techniques to multicriteria routing, security issues in FHAMIPv6, connecting moving smart objects to the Internet, underwater sensor networks, wireless mesh network architecture and protocols, adaptive routing provision using Bayesian inference, and adaptive flow control in transport layer using genetic algorithms.

Design of a Survivable Hybrid Wireless-Optical Broadband-Access Network

Abstract: The hybrid wireless-optical broadband-access network (WOBAN) is a promising architecture for access networks. Although the front-end wireless mesh networks in a WOBAN are self-healing, the back-end passive optical networks do not have survivability due to their tree topology. We propose a cost-effective protection method for WOBAN that deals with network element failures in the optical part of WOBAN. We define the maximum protection with minimum cost (MPMC) problem and show that the problem can be converted to the minimum cost maximum flow (MCMF) problem. We also present an integer linear programming (ILP) model for the MCMF problem. Numerical results are reported for the application of our algorithm to obtain the optimal solutions for different instances of the MPMC problem.

Reliable and Real-Time Communication in Industrial Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract: Industrial wireless mesh networks are deployed in harsh and noisy environments for process measurement and control applications. Compared with wireless community networks, they have more stringent requirements on communication reliability and real-time performance. Missing or delaying of the process data by the network may severely degrade the overall control performance. In this paper, we abstract the primary reliability requirements in typical industrial wireless mesh networks and define three types of reliable routing graphs for different communication purposes. We present efficient algorithms to construct them and describe the recovery mechanisms in the event of component failures. Based on these graphs, data link layer communication schedules are generated to achieve end-to-end real-time performance. We demonstrate through extensive experimental results that our algorithms can achieve highly reliable routing, improved communication latency and stable real-time communication in large-scale networks at the cost of modest overhead in device configuration.

Security Framework for Wireless Communications in Smart Distribution Grid

Abstract: Communication networks play a critical role in smart grid, as the intelligence of smart grid is built based on information exchange across the power grid. In power transmission segments of smart grid, wired communications are usually adopted to ensure robustness of the backbone power network. In contrast, for a power distribution grid, wireless communications provide many benefits such as low cost high speed links, easy setup of connections among different devices/appliances, and so on. Connecting power equipment, devices, and appliances through wireless networks is indispensable for a smart distribution grid (SDG). However, wireless communications are usually more vulnerable to security attacks than wired ones. Developing appropriate wireless communication architecture and its security measures is extremely important for an SDG. Thus, these two problems are investigated in this paper. Firstly, a wireless communication architecture is proposed for an SDG based on wireless mesh networks (WMNs). The security framework under this communication architecture is then analyzed. More specifically, potential security attacks and possible counter-attack measures are studied. Within the security framework, a new intrusion detection and response scheme, called smart tracking firewall, is developed to meet the special requirements of SDG wireless communications. Performance results show that the smart tracking firewall can quickly detect and respond to security attacks and is thus suitable for real-time operation of an SDG.

The Wireless Control Network: A New Approach for Control Over Networks

Abstract: We present a method to stabilize a plant with a network of resource constrained wireless nodes. As opposed to traditional networked control schemes where the nodes simply route information to and from a dedicated controller (perhaps performing some encoding along the way), our approach treats the network itself as the controller. Specifically, we formulate a strategy for each node in the network to follow, where at each time-step, each node updates its internal state to be a linear combination of the states of the nodes in its neighborhood. We show that this causes the entire network to behave as a linear dynamical system, with sparsity constraints imposed by the network topology. We provide a numerical design procedure to determine appropriate linear combinations to be applied by each node so that the transmissions of the nodes closest to the actuators will stabilize the plant. We also show how our design procedure can be modified to maintain mean square stability under packet drops in the network, and present a distributed scheme that can handle node failures while preserving stability. We call this architecture a Wireless Control Network, and show that it introduces very low computational and communication overhead to the nodes in the network, allows the use of simple transmission scheduling algorithms, and enables compositional design (where the existing wireless control infrastructure can be easily extended to handle new plants that are brought online in the vicinity of the network).

Multigate Communication Network for Smart Grid

Abstract: It is envisioned that one of the most important issues in smart grid will be to design a network architecture that is capable of providing secure and reliable two-way communication from meters to other Smart Grid domains. While networking technologies and systems have been greatly enhanced, in wireless communication environments the smart grid faces new challenges in terms of reliability and efficiency. In this paper we present a multigate mesh network architecture to handle real-time traffic for the last mile communication. The paper consists of three parts; multigate routing, real-time traffic scheduling, and multichannel (MC) aided wireless mesh routing. The multigate routing is based on a flexible mesh network architecture that expands on the hybrid tree routing of the IEEE 802.11s. The network is specifically designed to operate in a multi gateway structure in order to meet the smart grid requirements in terms of reliability, self-healing, and throughput performance. This includes developing a timer-based multiple-path diversity scheme that takes advantage of the multi gateway network structure. With respect to packet scheduling, we introduce a novel and efficient scheme that is capable of balancing the traffic load among multiple gateways. The proposed scheme, which is based on the backpressure concept due to its simplicity, is suitable for practical implementation. We also present an MC aided wireless mesh routing protocol which is specifically designed for multigate smart grid networks. The results indicate that a combination of multipath routing and the backpressure-based packet-scheduling scheme can show a significant improvement in the network reliability, latency, and throughput performance. We also show an improvement in the order of magnitude can be achieved via the proposed multichannel aided routing protocol.

Systems, methods, and apparatus for identifying invalid nodes within a mesh network

Abstract: Systems (100), methods (300), and apparatus for identifying invalid nodes within a mesh network (105) are provided. A routing table (104) may be maintained by a utility meter (120). The routing table (140) may include information associated with one or more devices in communication with the utility meter via a mesh network. A change in the routing table may be identified by the utility meter (120), and an alert message associated with the identified change may be generated by the utility meter (120). The generated alert may then be output by the utility meter for communication to a central controller (110) configured to process the alert message to identify an invalid node within the mesh network.

Multi-path radio transmission input/output devices, network, systems and methods with on demand, prioritized routing protocol

Abstract: Devices, networks, systems and methods for coordinating industrial control and monitoring communications on multi-path radio frequency transmission mesh networks include establishing path metrics allowing a respective comparison of a plurality of available communication paths between neighboring radios communicating in the mesh network. Replies to route requests may be delayed based on the path metrics of available paths for message transmission to ensure that the best available connection routes through the mesh network can be understood and utilized.

A case for heterogeneous on-chip interconnects for CMPs

Abstract: Network-on-chip (NoC) has become a critical shared resource in the emerging Chip Multiprocessor (CMP) era. Most prior NoC designs have used the same type of router across the entire network. While this homogeneous network design eases the burden on a network designer, partitioning the resources equally among all routers across the network does not lead to optimal resource usage, and hence, affects the performance-power envelope. In this work, we propose to apportion the resources in an NoC to leverage the non-uniformity in network resource demand. Our proposal includes partitioning the network resources, specifically buffers and links, in an optimal manner. This approach results in redistributing resources such that routers that require more resources are allocated more buffers and wider links compared to routers demanding fewer resources. This results in a novel heterogeneous network, called HeteroNoC, which is composed of two types of routers -- small power efficient routers, and big high performance routers. We evaluate a number of heterogeneous network configurations, composed of big and small routers, and show that giving more resources to routers along the diagonals in a mesh network provides maximum benefits in terms of performance and power. We also show the potential benefits of the HeteroNoC design by co-evaluating it with memory-controllers and configuring it with an asymmetric CMP consisting of heterogeneous cores.

Routing and mobility approaches in IPv6 over LoWPAN mesh networks

Abstract: It is foreseeable that any object in the near future will have an Internet connection—this is the Internet of Things vision. All these objects will be able to exchange and process information, most of them characterized by small size, power constrained, small computing and storage resources. In fact, connecting embedded low-power devices to the Internet is considered the biggest challenge and opportunity for the Internet. There is a strong trend of convergence towards an Internet-based solution and the 6LoWPAN may be the convergence solution to achieve the Internet of Things vision. Wireless mesh networks have attracted the interest of the scientific community in recent years. One of the key characteristics of wireless mesh networks is the ability to self-organize and self-configure. Mesh networking and mobility support are considered crucial to the Internet of Things success. This paper surveys the available solutions proposed to support routing and mobility over 6LoWPAN mesh networks. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Valuable detours: least-cost anypath routing

Abstract: In many networks, it is less costly to transmit a packet to any node in a set of neighbors than to one specific neighbor. This observation was previously exploited by opportunistic routing protocols by using single-path routing metrics to assign to each node a group of candidate relays for a particular destination. This paper addresses the least-cost anypath routing (LCAR) problem: how to assign a set of candidate relays at each node for a given destination such that the expected cost of forwarding a packet to the destination is minimized. The key is the following tradeoff: On one hand, increasing the number of candidate relays decreases the forwarding cost, but on the other, it increases the likelihood of "veering" away from the shortest-path route. Prior proposals based on single-path routing metrics or geographic coordinates do not explicitly consider this tradeoff and, as a result, do not always make optimal choices. The LCAR algorithm and its framework are general and can be applied to a variety of networks and cost models. We show how LCAR can incorporate different aspects of underlying coordination protocols, for example a link-layer protocol that randomly selects which receiving node will forward a packet, or the possibility that multiple nodes mistakenly forward a packet. In either case, the LCAR algorithm finds the optimal choice of candidate relays that takes into account these properties of the link layer. Finally, we apply LCAR to low-power, low-rate wireless communication and introduce a new wireless link-layer technique to decrease energy transmission costs in conjunction with anypath routing. Simulations show significant reductions in transmission cost to opportunistic routing using single-path metrics. Furthermore, LCAR routes are more robust and stable than those based on single-path distances due to the integrative nature of the LCAR's route cost metric.

Hetnets - a new paradigm for increasing cellular capacity and coverage [Guest Editorial]

Abstract: Wireless data traffic has been increasing exponentially in recent years. Driven by a new generation of devices (smart phones, MIDs, netbooks, etc.), capacity demand increases faster than spectral efficiency improvement, particularly at hotspots/areas. Also, as services migrate from voice centric to data centric, more users operate indoors, which requires increased link budget and coverage extension to provide uniform user experience. Traditional networks optimized for homogeneous traffic face unprecedented challenges to meet the demand cost effectively. Most recently, Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced has started a new study item to investigate heterogeneous network (HetNet) deployments as an efficient way to improve system capacity as well as effectively enhance network coverage. Unlike traditional heterogeneous networks that deal with the interworking of wireless local area networks and cellular networks, which the research community has already studied for more than a decade, in this new paradigm in the cellular network domain, a HetNet is a network containing nodes with different characteristics such as transmission power and radio frequency (RF) coverage area. Low-power micro nodes and high-power macro nodes can be maintained under the management of the same operator. They can share the same frequency band, provided by the operator. In this case, joint radio resource/interference management needs to be provided to ensure the coverage of low-power nodes. In some other cases, the low- and highpower nodes can use discontinuous bands of an operator separately (e.g., through carrier aggregation) so that strong interference with each other can be avoided. Macro network nodes with large RF coverage areas are deployed in a planned way for blanket coverage of urban, suburban, and rural areas. Local nodes with small RF coverage areas aim to complement the macro network nodes for coverage extension or throughput enhancement. In addition to this, global coverage can be provided by satellites (macrocells) according to an integrated system concept. The objective of Het-Nets targets the improvement of overall capacity as well as a cost-effective coverage extension and green radio solution by deploying additional network nodes within the local area range, such as low-power micro/pico network nodes, home-evolved Node-Bs (HeNBs)/closed subscriber group (CSG) cells, and femto and relay nodes.

FACES: Friend-Based Ad Hoc Routing Using Challenges to Establish Security in MANETs Systems

Abstract: Friend based Ad hoc routing using Challenges to Establish Security (FACES) is an algorithm to provide secure routing in ad hoc mobile networks We propose this scheme that has been drawn from a network of friends in real life scenarios The algorithm works by sending challenges and sharing friend Lists to provide a list of trusted nodes to the source node through which data transmission finally takes place The nodes in the friend list are rated on the basis of the amount of data transmission they accomplish and their friendship with other nodes in the network The account of friendship of a node with other nodes in the network is obtained through the Share Your Friends process which is a periodic event in the network As a result of this scheme of operation, the network is able to effectively isolate the malicious nodes which are left with no role to play in the ad hoc network One major benefit of this scheme is that the nodes do not need to promiscuously listen to the traffic passing through their neighbors The information about the malicious nodes is gathered effectively by using Challenges This reduces the overhead on the network significantly Through extensive simulation analysis it was inferred that this scheme provides an efficient approach towards security and easier detection of malicious nodes in the mobile ad hoc network

Self-reconfigurable wireless mesh networks

Abstract: During their lifetime, multihop wireless mesh networks (WMNs) experience frequent link failures caused by channel interference, dynamic obstacles, and/or applications' bandwidth demands. These failures cause severe performance degradation in WMNs or require expensive manual network management for their real-time recovery. This paper presents an autonomous network reconfiguration system (ARS) that enables a multiradio WMN to autonomously recover from local link failures to preserve network performance. By using channel and radio diversities in WMNs, ARS generates necessary changes in local radio and channel assignments in order to recover from failures. Next, based on the thus-generated configuration changes, the system cooperatively reconfigures network settings among local mesh routers. ARS has been implemented and evaluated extensively on our IEEE 802.11-based WMN test-bed as well as through ns2-based simulation. Our evaluation results show that ARS outperforms existing failure-recovery schemes in improving channel-efficiency by more than 90% and in the ability of meeting the applications' bandwidth demands by an average of 200%.

Improving IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks for Reliable Routing in the Smart Grid Infrastructure

Abstract: Smart grid environments require high standard of reliable transmission technologies to support various types of electrical services and applications. This paper recommends the utilization of IEEE 802.11s based Wireless LAN Mesh Networks as the high-speed backbone networks for smart grid infrastructure. 802.11s based mesh networks can provide high scalability and flexibility, along with low installation and management costs. We also describe some challenging issues of the IEEE 802.11s WLAN mesh based smart grid networks, and propose two novel methods for improving their routing reliability. A simulation study using the ns-3 was conducted to evaluate an important problem in the current mesh networks and prove the superiority of our proposed scheme.

Buffer sizing for multi-hop networks

Abstract: A cumulative buffer may be defined for an interference domain in a wireless mesh network and distributed among nodes in the network to maintain or improve capacity utilization of network resources in the interference domain without increasing packet queuing delay times. When an interference domain having communications links sharing resources in a network is identified, a cumulative buffer size is calculated. The cumulative buffer may be distributed among buffers in each node of the interference domain according to a simple division or according to a cost function taking into account a distance of the communications link from the source and destination. The network may be monitored and the cumulative buffer size recalculated and redistributed when the network conditions change.

XPRESS: a cross-layer backpressure architecture for wireless multi-hop networks

Abstract: Contemporary wireless multi-hop networks operate much below their capacity due to the poor coordination among transmitting nodes In this paper we present XPRESS, a cross-layer backpressure architecture designed to reach the full capacity of wireless multi-hop networks Instead of a collection of poorly coordinated wireless routers, XPRESS turns a mesh network into a wireless switch Transmissions over the network are scheduled using a throughput-optimal backpressure algorithm Realizing this theoretical concept entails several challenges, which we identify and address with a cross-layer design and implementation on top of our wireless hardware platform In contrast to previous work, we implement and evaluate backpressure scheduling over a TDMA MAC protocol, as it was originally proposed in theory Our experiments in an indoor testbed show that XPRESS can yield up to 128% throughput gains over 80211

Selective jamming/dropping insider attacks in wireless mesh networks

Abstract: Wireless mesh networks promise to extend high-speed wireless connectivity beyond what is possible with the current WiFi-based infrastructure. However, their unique architectural features leave them particularly vulnerable to security threats. In this article we describe various forms of sophisticated attacks launched from adversaries with internal access to the WMN. We further identify possible detection and mitigation mechanisms.

Secure Routing for Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract: This paper describes a Security Enhanced AODV routing protocol for wireless mesh networks (SEAODV) SEAODV employs Blom's key pre-distribution scheme to compute the pairwise transient key (PTK) through the flooding of enhanced HELLO message and subsequently uses the established PTK to distribute the group transient key (GTK) PTK and GTK are used for authenticating unicast and broadcast routing messages respectively In wireless mesh networks, a unique PTK is shared by each pair of nodes, while GTK is shared secretly between the node and all its one-hop neighbors A message authentication code (MAC) is attached as the extension to the original AODV routing message to guarantee the message's authenticity and integrity in a hop-by-hop fashion Security analysis and performance evaluation show that SEAODV is more effective in preventing identified routing attacks and outperforms ARAN and SAODV in terms of computation cost and route acquisition latency

A Realistic Small-World Model for Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract: Small-world network concept deals with the addition of a few Long-ranged Links (LLs) to significantly bring down the average path length (APL) of the network. The existing small-world models do not consider the real constraints of wireless networks such as the transmission range of LLs, limited radios per mesh router, and limited bandwidth for wireless links, therefore, we propose C-SWAWN (Constrained Small-World Architecture for Wireless Network) model for Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). We then propose three LL addition strategies for reducing APL to the centrally placed Gateway node in WMNs. In moderately large WMNs, a 43% reduction in APL to Gateway can be achieved with the addition of 10% LLs (with respect to number of mesh routers) in our C-SWAWN model with greedy LL addition strategy. Detailed studies show realistic performance benefits with application of small-world concept in WMNs.