Seamless communication over Heterogeneous interfaces in Mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper we have implemented experimental testbed of heterogeneous mobile ad hoc network. We consider nodes equipped with Ethernet, 802.11g and Bluetooth. A switching algorithm is proposed that run on nodes having multiple interfaces called gateway nodes. Switching algorithm performs two functions. First it captures the network traffic and performs the switching decision, second it forwards the packet to the desired interface. Testbed is implemented on Linux. To integrate Bluetooth, Bluetooth network encapsulation protocol (BNEP) is used. Different experimental scenarios are created and measurements are taken on the testbed. Results show that connectivity among heterogeneous interfaces increases reachability of nodes and overall reliability of the network.