A Novel Mobility Management Scheme for IEEE 802.11-Based Wireless Mesh Networks

Recent advances in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have overcome the drawbacks of traditional wired networks and wireless ad hoc networks. WMNs are going to play a highly promising role in the next generation of networks. Mobility management is one of the most significant management services for WMNs. Due to the inherent characteristics of WMNs, such as relatively static backbones and highly mobile clients, the question of how to provide seamless mobility management for WMNs is the driving force behind research. In this paper, a novel intra-domain mobility management scheme for WMNs is presented. A hybrid routing algorithm is used to forward packets, and during handoff, gratuitous ARP messages are used to provide the new routing information, thus avoiding re-routing and location update. Real-time applications over 802.11 WMNs can be supported by this scheme, such as VoIP, etc.