SELECTING FORWARDING DEVICES IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

摘要

A forwarding device can establish a communication link with both a source device and a destination device to extend the communication range of the source device by forwarding data from the source device to the destination device. A coordinating device can be configured to identify a forwarding client through which to communicate with a client station that is inaccessible to the coordinating device via a direct communication link, based on the throughput achieved on communication links between the coordinating device, the inaccessible client, and accessible clients. The throughput achieved on the communication links can be determined by exchanging training packets, receiving acknowledgement messages in response to the training packets, and subsequently analyzing the received acknowledgement messages. Based on the calculated throughputs, one of the accessible clients can be designated as the forwarding client with respect to the coordinating device and the inaccessible client.