Assessing mobility support in mesh networks

We address the joint problem of traffic routing and mobility support in wireless mesh networks that are built by many fixed nodes and few mobile nodes. We focus on a vehicular setting, where buses or streetcars connect to different fixed mesh nodes as they move in a urban environment. First, through simulation we identify the best candidate for routing traffic in such a scenario and we find that our improved version of the BATMAN protocol, named smart window BATMAN, outperforms other reactive and proactive approaches. Then, we develop a testbed which includes both roadside mesh nodes and vehicular mesh nodes. There, we implement the selected routing solution, along with a handover scheme that allows vehicles to connect to the different mesh nodes in a seamless manner. Our testbed and performance assessment show that mobility can be efficiently supported in mesh networks, and that our modified version of the BATMAN protocol is a good candidate for sustaining the handover of UDP streams in a seamless manner.