Gateway Routing: A Cluster Based Mechanism for Recovery from Mobile Host Partitioning in Cellular Networks

In a cellular network, a Mobile Host (MH) is said to be partitioned if it gets out of transmission range of the Base Station (BS) backbone netw ork.Rapid and eÆcient reco veryfrom MH partitioning is desirable, especially in Rapidly Deployable Netw orks (RDNs) in which BS mobility aggravates the partitioning problem. RDNs consist of Mobile Base Stations (MBSs) connected by high bandwidth wireless links. Routing in RDNs must account for the instability of the MBS backbone as well as the frequent partitioning of the MHs due to MBS displacement or failure. We view the MBS backbone as a low mobility ad-hoc netw ork, where connectivity can be maintained through suitable routing schemes for ad-hoc networks. We propose a clustering algorithm for quick and eÆcient reco very from MH partitioning in whic h thecluster heads are gateways to other MBSs. This algorithm simpli es the cluster formation and maintenance process and at the same time ensures low message and time complexity.