Integration of ad hoc networks with fixed networks using an adaptive gateway discovery protocol

A gateway discovery mechanism is necessary to make possible that wireless nodes in an ad hoc network route their packets towards a fixed network. Real-time applications have quality of service parameters and need a gateway discovery mechanism that helps them to maintain their requirements. In this work we propose a new adaptive gateway discovery scheme that adjusts the frequency of the gateway advertisements dynamically. This protocol is able to differentiate services between applications and it cooperates with real-time flows to maintain the desired quality of service. Simulation results investigate the performance of the proposed adaptive scheme and show the effectiveness of this scheme in comparison with the hybrid mechanism in the simulated scenarios. (9 pages)