NodesJoints: A framework for tree-based MANET in IEEE 802.11 infrastructure mode

In recent years there is a proliferation of ubiquitous portable computing devices which can be used in the absence of connection facilities in disconnected environments. A huge number of these devices are portable such as srnartphones, tablets and laptops. Without proper connection facilities, these devices could connect via ad hoc network as an alternative solution to overcome their needs of connectivity. However, generally most operating systems for smartphones and tablets do not support the feature of creating and even connecting to ad hoc networks. In addition, there are some drawbacks of ad hoc networks such as low performance and high energy consumption. These shortcomings motivate us to find a proper substitute network structure to efficiently fill the absence of ad hoc networks whenever using ad hoc is not feasible in practice. Finding an alternative way to establish ad hoc connection brings prominent use cases in several fields including disaster management, social networking, entertainment and marketing. Furthermore, it has the potential to open new prospects for further research. Our proposed solution, NodesJoints is meant to be used in the absence of ad hoc connectivity or existing network connections. It takes advantage of WNIC (wireless network interface card) virtualization and on-client AP (access point) feature to construct and connect a tree of nodes to perform message passing among the clients in infrastructure mode. Throughout this paper, our proposed framework is explicated for different stages of network life cycle such as network creation, routing table, route discovery and routing table update mechanisms.