Mobility management in wireless mesh networks

A viable support of an on-going or a new session for a subscriber on the move requires an effective scheme for Mobility Management. To this end, an array of protocols such as MIPv4, MIPv6, HMIPv6, FMIPv6 have been proposed for the wired Internet. Unfortunately, the wireless connectivity in the wireless mesh networks (WMNs) gives rise to several issues that limits the direct applicability of these mobility management protocols for the wired network. We have contributed to this chapter by identifying and explaining these issues and then giving a critical review of some of the key research proposals made in this area. The literature review also shows that the proposals offer a limited support for mobility management in multi-radio wireless mesh networks (MR-WMN). Thus, we have further contributed, by proposing a scheme to carry out a seamless mobility management in WMN as well as MR-WMN. We have taken into account the lessons learnt from the proposals made in the literature. This chapter has been written in a simple way such that students as well as professionals including those who are new to this area should be able to significantly benefit from reading it.