Policy-based self-management of hybrid ad hoc networks for dynamic channel configuration

Wireless networks have become a ubiquitous reality and ever more surround our everyday activities. They form and disappear around us spontaneously and have become new means for social interaction. At the same time, their increased complexity and heterogeneity have become barriers to their wider adoption and ease of use. It has become clear that self-management capabilities are vital for truly pervasive network management. To cater for the needs of both service providers and users, we propose a policy-based solution based on the ad hoc networking paradigm. By allowing limited infrastructure support, the notion of ldquohybrid ad hoc networksrdquo emerges as a flexible extension to todaypsilas networks. A distributed policy repository provides the support for policy-based device management and devices can autonomously adapt by examining local conditions and taking corrective actions in real-time. We design a system with self-management capabilities, able to self-configure and self-optimize connectivity parameters. Our aim is to simplify the management of hybrid ad hoc networks, enabling their coexistence and integration with wireless local area networks (WLANs). Implementation and deployment on a wireless testbed have demonstrated significant performance improvement for ad hoc networks in the presence of interference. Our experiments have measured a 33% goodput increase, after switching to a non-interfering channel in real-time.