High-Performance, Energy-Efficient Mobile Wireless Networking in 802.11 Infrastructure Mode

A plethora of mobile wireless networking approaches, from multi-hop infrastructure-less networking to mobile offloading and crowd sourcing, relies on establishing communication directly between devices. However, the 802.11 ad-hoc mode, as the designated technological means to realize device-to-device communication, suffers from missing support by vendors and operating system and lacks 802.11 functionality support. If at all, mobile wireless networking approaches reach a very low number of compatible devices and have to tolerate low network performance, deprecated WEP network security, and a lack of energy saving mechanisms. Eventually, this lack of a technological basis prevents the timely and beneficial real-world adoption of mobile networking. We thus propose such a basis in MA-Fi, multi-hop mobile networking using the 802.11 infrastructure mode. Building on comprehensive vendor and device support, MA-Fi realizes 802.11n performance, WPA2 security, and efficient energy saving mechanisms in ubiquitously compatible, mobile 802.11 infrastructure mode networks. Specifically, MA-Fi uses network virtualization to establish a two-tiered network topology that seamlessly incorporates legacy Wi-Fi devices. In comparison to the ad-hoc mode, MA-Fi achieves throughput of up to 340% while reducing the network-wide energy consumption by up to 75%.