Efficient authentication for fast handover in wireless mesh networks

We propose new authentication protocols to support fast handover in IEEE 802.11-based wireless mesh networks. The authentication server does not need to be involved in the handover authentication process. Instead, mesh access points directly authenticate mobile clients using tickets, avoiding multi-hop wireless communications in order to minimize the authentication delay. Numerical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed handover authentication protocol significantly outperforms IEEE 802.11 authentication in terms of authentication delay.