Handover delay analysis for cooperative Ad-hoc Interconnected Mobile Networks

When a number of mobile networks, e.g. networks on vehicles, travel together, they can be interconnected in a dynamic mesh structure, here called Ad hoc Interconnected Mobile Network or AIMNET. The mesh topology interconnecting the mobile networks not only facilitates communication among the networks themselves, but more importantly allows sharing of Internet access available to individual mobile networks. AIMNET is expected to move in a heterogeneous wireless access environment where ubiquitous Internet access demands handovers. In this paper, we examine delays experienced at various levels of AIMNET in different types of handovers and identify main contributors of these delays. Based on this examination, we discuss methods to reduce handover delays. We also present simulation based evaluation of handovers in AIMNET employing these methods. The results of these simple simulations demonstrate the acceptable performance of AIMNET under proposed methods.