Resolving the Funneling Effect in the Node Mobility Management of Infrastructure-based Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we present a new method for efficient mobility management in infrastructure-based ad hoc networks. This type of network inherently takes the tree topology model in which an Internet gateway (IG) becomes a root. Accordingly, the nodes near the IG process get much more number of messages, thereby causing a bottleneck phenomenon that degrades network performance. This problem is known as a funneling effect. We present a method to maximize message aggregation in which the nodes in the networks form tree topology and perform skewed time synchronization according to the depths of the nodes during the tree construction process. We proved by resorting to simulation that the funneling effect is alleviated and network performance is improved greatly.