Research On Access Authentication Techniques Of WLAN Mesh Network

With the rapid development of wireless networks, wireless mesh network (WMN) as a key technology for next-generation extends the coverage and bandwidth of 802.11 networks, and have been focused by both researcher and enterprises.Firstly, a survey on the development and current status of WLAN and WMN is presented. Then, the IEEE802.11i security protocol and the access process of IEEE 802.1x authentication protocol are analyzed, and access authentication technology, which includes authentication model, four way handshake and EMSA authenticaion protocol, is researched in the WMN.In this base, more researchs are as following:1. The shortcoming of existing authentication model for wireless mesh is analyzed, then an improved authentication model based on hierarchical structure of WMN is proposed.2. The vulnerabilities of existing authentication protocol for wireless mesh are identified and a new authentication protocol (WMSA) is presented. Analysis and testing results show that our protocol is SK-secure, and have a good merit on communicating and computing performances.3.The improved one not only solves the security problems in WMN, but a prototype of access for wireless mesh is implemented based on the prsented authentication protocol, with the emphsis on the STA, MP, and AS.