Load-balancing strategy of multi-gateway for ad hoc Internet connectivity

Abstract

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) are autonomous, infrastructureless networks that support multi-hop communication through IP routing. MANET and Internet have many differences. These differences are not only the structure and topology of the networks, but also communication patterns of nodes in both networks. Therefore, it is a challenging problem for MANET to access to the Internet due to these differences. There are many kinds of accessing mode such as single fix gateway or multi-gateway, where load-balancing is the most important problem. In this paper, we propose the dynamic gateway concept that acts as an interface between MANET and the Internet. These dynamic gateways can use mobile IP and DSDV protocol when they communicate with the Internet and interact with MANET, respectively. The dynamic gateway is used to solve the load-balancing problem. Several simulation experimental results in the dynamic gateway environment show that the performance of network has been improved.