Establishing mobile ad-hoc networks in 802.11 infrastructure mode

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) rely on the 802.11 ad-hoc mode to establish communication with nearby peers. In practice, this makes MANETs hard to realize. While 802.11-compliant mobile devices implement the ad-hoc mode on the hardware layer, the software layer typically does not implement support for ad-hoc networking in terms of ad-hoc routing and name resolution protocols. Modern mobile operating systems, such as Android and iOS, even hide the inherent ad-hoc functionality of the wireless card through restrictions in the OS. In contrast to this, support for the 802.11 infrastructure mode is a commodity. We propose establishing ad-hoc networks using the 802.11 infrastructure mode. In MA-Fi (Mobile Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi), a small core of mobile router nodes (RONs) provides infrastructure mode network access to mobile station nodes (STANs). As STANs also act as a station in infrastructure networks of other RONs, MA-Fi achieves multi-hop communication between RON and STAN devices in the overall network. We show the creation and operation of mobile ad-hoc networks using MA-Fi. We focus on mobility of RONs and STANs as well as topology control in the overall network.