A Protocol Independent Internet Gateway for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

An autonomous wireless local area network (AWLAN) is a collection of wireless computers that can be rapidly deployed as an ad hoc network without the aid of any established infrastructure or centralized administration. However, existing routing protocols for such networks neither scale nor function on the Internet. Therefore, a solution is required that provides a gateway between the ad hoc network and the Internet. In this paper, we propose a protocol-independent Internet gateway for ad hoc networks, the Cluster Gateway (CG). The proposed Cluster Gateway (CG) provides Internet access by acting as both a Service Access Point and a Mobile IP Foreign Agent for ad hoc networks. In this paper, we describe the requirements for supporting the CG in any ad hoc routing protocol, the messages sent in order to provide CG support, and several optional enhancements for the CG. Finally, we briefly describe an implementation of the CG over an existing ad hoc routing protocol.