What is a mesh network?

Our LoRa pro series of LoRa modules and SV series of wireless modules have been widely welcomed in the market, and have also received a lot of praise from customers. But our two series of wireless modules have a mesh network mode, so many customers will ask us, what is a mesh network? What are the characteristics of the module's mesh mode?

What is a mesh network?

Wireless Mesh technology is a new type of wireless network technology that is completely different from traditional wireless networks. In a traditional WLAN, each client accesses the network through a wireless link connected to an access point (AP). If users want to communicate with each other, they must first access a fixed AP. This network structure is called a single Jump network. In a wireless Mesh network, any wireless device node can act as a router at the same time, each node in the network can send and receive signals, and each node can directly communicate with one or more peer nodes.

The biggest advantage of this structure is that if the nearest AP is congested due to excessive traffic, the data can be automatically rerouted to a neighboring node with less traffic for transmission. By analogy, data packets can continue to be routed to the next closest node for transmission according to the network conditions, until they reach the final destination. This access method is multi-hop access.

For the most vivid example, we often send emails to customers in our daily work, but the emails are not sent directly from our mailbox to the customer's mailbox but are sent from one server to another through the router, and finally go through many times. Routing and forwarding are delivered to the customer's mailbox. This is a typical mesh network.

The mesh mode in our wireless module is a working mode independently developed based on the characteristics and advantages of the mesh network.

What are the characteristics of the mesh mode of our module?

In our spontaneous research and development MESH mode, the modules can be configured into nodes and routes through different modules to form a MESH network as a whole to realize point-to-point and point-to-multipoint transmission. The node section module configured in Node mode is similar to that of a standard communication terminal. Module, the routing module configured in Router mode will forward data in the same network to solve the problem of insufficient single point-to-point transmission distance in many practical applications, and there is no limit to the number of routes in the entire network. When the mesh mode is turned on, the module can form long-distance and no blind zone data communication.

(Working principle diagram of mesh network mode)

How do the mesh modes form long-distance and no blind zone data communication?

Our engineers use relay wireless modules to forward data to ensure that all wireless modules can receive data and there is no signal blind zone of any wireless module. As shown in the figure above, Center is the starting point of data, Node is the end of data, and Router is the relay; when the wireless module at the starting point of Center wants to send data, no matter how far away, there will be a router relay wireless module to forward the data of the starting module. To form long-distance data communication without blind spots.