Transparent and Distributed Localization of Mobile Users in Wireless Mesh Networks

Localization of mobile users in wireless mesh networks (WMN) generally relies on some sort of flooding-based technique. Broadcasting the network is good for reliability but leads to increased latency and broadcast storm problems. This results in low efficiency of the location management mechanism in terms of packets loss and disconnection time. In this paper, we investigate a new DHT-based location management scheme through experimental evaluation on our WMN testbed. The main features of our proposed scheme are that broadcast packets are totally avoided and node localization becomes transparent to the users. We compare it to our previous flooding-based location scheme, namely EMM (Enhanced Mobility Management). Our results show improved performance both in terms of dropped packets and handover latency introduced to re-establish open sessions after a user moves.