A simple solution for wireless network layer roaming problems

• Main Author: B. Almasi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: UT Press Publishing House 2012-06-01
• Series: Carpathian Journal of Electronic and Computer Engineering
• Subjects: roaming; wireless; IP address change; tunnel
• Online Access: http://cjece.ubm.ro/vol/5-2012/2_Almasi.pdf

The trouble-free moving of wireless clients between access points (i.e. “roaming”) is a basic requirement in wireless sensor networks (e.g. when the sensor is attached to a moving object). The network layer roaming issues a problem to solve: the IP address is changed during the roaming, so basically it would close all the running communication sessions. The Mobile IP specification offers a solution idea for this problem by keeping the old IP address, and establishing a tunnel between the “old” and the “new” network. In this solution the optimality of the communication is lost: The path between the peers must travel through the “old” network, so the triangle inequality holds. In this paper we introduce a new idea for wireless network layer roaming, which ensures the usage of the optimal path and also guarantees that the network connection will not be lost during the IP address changing.