| Researchers have determined that mobile computing faces three main challenges which must be investigated to allow for public dissemination of the technology: wireless issues (lower bandwidth, higher error rates, more frequent disconnections, and less secure than wired computers), portability issues (lower power and smaller storage capacity than static computers), and mobility issues (location management of the mobile nodes). We address each of these challenges in this work.;A mobile node, traveling in a cellular network, must decide when to leave its current Base and adopt a new Base. The decision of when the mobile node should switch its link-level point of attachment impacts the wireless challenges in mobile computing. We present several cell switching strategies for diminishing the effects of being wireless on mobile computing.;In order to reduce the difficulties related to portability, all existing distributed algorithms must be examined. In this research, we modify two distributed termination detection algorithms to reduce their power requirements since low power is one of the portability challenges in mobile computing. Our enhancements reduce the number of messages a mobile node must send and receive; thus, the enhancements reduce the mobile node's power usage.;Group communication, or multicasting, allows nodes to efficiently transmit messages to all members of a particular group. Since mobile nodes are allowed to move freely, group location management (the third mobile computing challenge) is more difficult than in the case of static computers. We present an efficient group location management protocol in order to reduce the effect of the mobility challenge. |
