Integrating Mobile Ad Hoc Network to the Internet

A novel scheme is presented to integrate mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) with the Internet and support mobility across wireless local area networks (WLANs) and MANETs. The mobile nodes, connected as a MANET, employ the optimize d link state routing (OLSR) protocol for routing within the MANET. Mobility management across WLANs and MANETs is achieved through the hierarchical mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) protocol. The performance is evaluated on a HMIPv6 based test-bed composed of WLANs and MANETs. The efficiency gain obtained from using HMIPv6 in such a hybrid network is investigated. The investigation result shows that the use of HMIPv6 can achieve up to 27% gain on reducing the handoff latency when a mobile roams within a domain. Concerning the reduction of the signaling load on the Internet, the use of HMIPv6 can achieve at least a 54% gain and converges to 69%.