A Mobility Management and Routing Protocol Using Tree Architecture for Internet Connectivity of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

We propose a tree-based routing protocol (TBRP) with node mobility management technique for integrated mobile ad hoc and infrastructure networks. A suite of network management protocols build and maintain a network architecture in the form of small-sized trees, each starting from a node that can directly communicate with a gateway. Each node in a tree keeps track of information for its descendent nodes. A new node registers with a foreign agent along a tree path without resorting to an inefficient flooding. We also devise an efficient routing protocol that exploits tree information where route discovery does not use a flooding, either. We examined the proposed protocol for its applicability and got a promising result, even with high network traffic.

I. Introduction

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET) is temporarily formed by a number of mobile stations (thereafter, referred to as nodes) without the help of any fixed infrastructure. Despite its usefulness, its applicability is limited in many areas in which mobile nodes need Internet connectivity such that they make connection request to or take connection request from the nodes remotely deployed in either Internet or other MANETs.