In the Internet community, Mobile IP(MIP)[53] is often mentioned when it comes to routing support for mobile hosts. This is technology to support nomadic host roaming, where a roaming host may be connected through various means to the Internet other than its well known fixed-address domain space. The host may be directly physically connected to the fixed network on a foreign subnet, or be connected via a wireless link, dial-up line, etc. Supporting this form of host mobility requires address management, protocol interoperability enhancements and the like, but core network functions such as hop-by-hop routing still presently rely upon pre- existing routing protocols operating within the fixed network. In contrast, the goal of mobile ad hoc networking is to extend mobility into the realm of autonomous, mobile, wireless domains, where a set of nodes, which may be combined routers and hosts, themselves form the network routing infrastructure in an ad hoc fashion.
Andreas 2004-07-29