Transparent and Distributed Localization of Mobile Users in Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract. Localization of mobile users in wireless mesh networks (WMN) generally relies on some sort of flooding-based technique. Broadcasting the network is good for reliability but leads to increased latency and broadcast storm problems. This results in low efficiency of the loca-tion management mechanism in terms of packets loss and disconnection time. In this paper, we investigate a new DHT-based location manage-ment scheme through experimental evaluation on our WMN testbed. The main features of our proposed scheme are that broadcast packets are to-tally avoided and node localization becomes transparent to the users. We compare it to our previous flooding-based location scheme, namely EMM (Enhanced Mobility Management). Our results show improved performance both in terms of dropped packets and handover latency introduced to re-establish open sessions after a user moves.