Implementing global connectivity and mobility support in a wireless multi-hop ad hoc network

Pervasive access to the Internet is driven by users who want wireless connectivity to ad hoc as well as infrastructure networks. Multi-hop wireless connectivity widens the coverage areas of access networks and enables two-way wireless traffic into previously dead-spot areas. This paper addresses network mobility issues, which are essential for roaming users who connect to the Internet through wireless access networks. We propose to support connectivity to wired infrastructure through multiple gateways with possibly different capabilities and utilization. Increased network performance can be achieved by adapting to variations in performance and coverage and by switching between gateways when beneficial. We present an efficient solution to enable ad hoc access to the Internet as well as interoperation of reactive routing protocols with Mobile IP. Our solution combines the benefits of proactive agent advertisement and reactive route discovery into a flexible multi-hop access network. We also discuss wireless network metrics that can be used for more intelligent decision making on gateway selection. The feasibility of our approach is validated by simulation and implementation.Godkänd; 2006; 20061228 (ysko)