Two-step delay based Internet gateway selection scheme for aeronautical ad hoc networks

Recently, ad hoc networks have been proposed as a means of providing Internet access to passengers on board aircraft flying in oceanic or remote regions. The vast majority of data in such networks is either destined for or originated at an Internet gateway, which connects the ad hoc network to the Internet. Therefore, the allocation of aircraft to gateways plays an important role for the overall network performance. In this paper, we propose a new scheme for gateway selection based on estimation of the path delay, and demonstrate that this approach is indeed superior to common solutions based on hop count or gateway utilization in terms of packet loss ratio and mean delay.