Enabling Network Based Local Mobility with Cooperative Access Points

In this paper, we propose a network based local mobility management scheme for 802.11 wireless networks. The scheme does not require modification on the mobile node and the mobility management is entirely handled by the network. Our scheme makes use of a cooperative DHCP service to ensure mobile node always obtains the same IP address within the mesh network. In addition, 802.11s is used to forward traffic to the correct location after mobile nodes moving to a different access point. We developed an analytical model to study the performance of proposed scheme and show that it can enable transparent node mobility in 802.11s networks. It can serve as an alternative to the existing proxy mobile IPv6 protocol when access points are under different domains.