Variable-Range Transmission Power Control in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we investigate the impact of variable-range transmission power control on the physical and network connectivity, on network capacity, and on power savings in wireless multihop networks. First, using previous work by Steele (1988), we show that, for a path attenuation factor a = 2, the average range of links in a planar random network of A m² having n nodes is ~aradicA/n1. We show that this average range is approximately half the range obtained when common-range transmission control is used. Combining this result and previous work by Gupta and Kumar (2000), we derive an expression for the average traffic carrying capacity of variable-range-based multihop networks. For a = 2, we show that this capacity remains constant even when more nodes are added to the network. Second, we derive a model that approximates the signaling overhead of a routing protocol as a function of the transmission range and node mobility for both route discovery and route maintenance. We show that there is an optimum setting for the transmission range, not necessarily the minimum, which maximizes the capacity available to nodes in the presence of node mobility. The results presented in this paper highlight the need to design future MAC and routing protocols for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks based, not on common-range which is prevalent today, but on variable-range power control     

Efficient flooding with passive clustering-an overhead-free selective forward mechanism for ad hoc/sensor networks

High capacity real-time data communications in sensor networks usually require multihop routing and ad hoc routing protocols. Unfortunately, ad hoc routing protocols usually do not scale well and cannot handle dense situations efficiently. These two issues-scalability and density-are the major limitations when we apply ad hoc routing schemes to sensor networks. Passive clustering (PC) classifies ad hoc/sensor nodes into critical and noncritical nodes without any extra transmission. By 2-b piggybacking and monitoring user traffic (e.g., data polling requests from a sink), PC deploys the clustering structure "for free". Moreover, PC makes even the first flooding as efficient as all subsequent floodings (i.e., no initialization overhead). PC introduces many benefits, including efficient flooding and density adaptation. As a result, PC reduces control overhead of ad hoc routing protocols significantly and, as a consequence, enables ad hoc routing in large, dense sensor networks. The resulting structure can be utilized in cluster-based ad hoc network/sensor networking as well as for active node selection.     

A simulation study of table-driven and on-demand routing protocolsfor mobile ad hoc networks

Bandwidth and power constraints are the main concerns in current wireless networks because multihop ad hoc mobile wireless networks rely on each node in the network to act as a router and packet forwarder. This dependency places bandwidth, power, and computation demands on mobile hosts which must be taken into account when choosing the best routing protocol. In previous years, protocols that build routes based on demand have been proposed. The major goal of on-demand routing protocols is to minimize control traffic overhead. We perform a simulation and performance study on some routing protocols for ad hoc networks. The distributed Bellman-Ford (1957, 1962), a traditional table-driven routing algorithm, is simulated to evaluate its performance in multihop wireless network. In addition, two on-demand routing protocols (dynamic source routing and associativity-based routing) with distinctive route selection algorithms are simulated in a common environment to quantitatively measure and contrast their performance. The final selection of an appropriate protocol will depend on a variety of factors, which are discussed in this article     

Topology and mobility considerations in mobile ad hoc networks

A highly dynamic topology is a distinguishing feature and challenge of a mobile ad hoc network. Links between nodes are created and broken, as the nodes move within the network. This node mobility affects not only the source and/or destination, as in a conventional wireless network, but also intermediate nodes, due to the network’s multihop nature. The resulting routes can be extremely volatile, making successful ad hoc routing dependent on efficiently reacting to these topology changes.

In order to better understand this environment, a number of characteristics have been studied concerning the links and routes that make up an ad hoc network. Several network parameters are examined, including number of nodes, network dimensions, and radio transmission range, as well as mobility parameters for maximum speed and wait times. In addition to suggesting guidelines for the evaluation of ad hoc networks, the results reveal several properties that should be considered in the design and optimization of MANET protocols.     

Efficient on-demand routing for mobile ad hoc wireless access networks

In this paper, we consider a mobile ad hoc wireless access network in which mobile nodes can access the Internet via one or more stationary gateway nodes. Mobile nodes outside the transmission range of the gateway can continue to communicate with the gateway via their neighboring nodes over multihop paths. On-demand routing schemes are appealing because of their low routing overhead in bandwidth restricted mobile ad hoc networks, however, their routing control overhead increases exponentially with node density in a given geographic area. To control the overhead of on-demand routing without sacrificing performance, we present a novel extension of the ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol, called LB-AODV, which incorporates the concept of load-balancing (LB). Simulation results show that as traffic increases, our proposed LB-AODV routing protocol has a significantly higher packet delivery fraction, a lower end-to-end delay and a reduced routing overhead when compared with both AODV and gossip-based routing protocols.     

An energy-efficient MAC protocol based on IEEE 802.11 in wireless ad hoc networks

Energy efficiency is a measure of the performance of IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop ad hoc networks. The IEEE 802.11 standard, currently used in wireless multihop ad hoc networks, wastes bandwidth capacity and energy resources because of many collisions. Therefore, controlling the contention window size at a given node will increase not only the operating life of the battery but also the overall system capacity. It is essential to develop effective backoff schemes for saving power in IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient backoff scheme and evaluate its performance in an ad hoc network. Our contention window mechanism devised by us grants a node access to a channel on the basis of the node’s percentage of residual energy. We use both an analytical model and simulation experiments to evaluate the effective performance of our scheme in an ad hoc network. Our extensive ns-2-based simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme provides excellent performance in terms of energy goodput, end-to-end goodput, and packet delivery ratio, as well as the end-to-end delay.     

Local data control and admission control for QoS support in wireless ad hoc networks

Wireless ad hoc networks consist of nodes having a self-centrically broadcasting nature of communication. To provide quality of service (QoS) for ad hoc networks, many issues are involved, including routing, medium-access control (MAC), resource reservation, mobility management, etc. Carefully designed distributed medium-access techniques must be used for channel resources, so that mechanisms are needed to efficiently recover from inevitable frame collisions. For ad hoc wireless networks with a contention-based distributed MAC layer, QoS support and guarantee become extremely challenging. In this paper, we address this challenging issue. We first consider MAC and resource-reservation aspects for QoS support in one-hop ad hoc wireless networks. We propose two local data-control schemes and an admission-control scheme for ad hoc networks with the IEEE 802.11e MAC standard. In the proposed fully distributed local data control schemes, each node maps the measured traffic-load condition into backoff parameters locally and dynamically. In the proposed distributed admission-control scheme, based on measurements, each node makes decisions on the acceptances/rejections of flows by themselves, without the presence of access points. The proposed mechanisms are evaluated via extensive simulations. Studies show that, with the proposed schemes, QoS can be guaranteed under a clear channel condition while maintaining a good utilization. Discussions on applying the proposed schemes into multihop ad hoc networks are also included.     

Distributed space-time coding for multihop transmission in power line communication networks

In this paper, we consider transmission in relatively wide-stretched power line communication (PLC) networks, where repeaters are required to bridge the source-to-destination distance. In particular, it is assumed that each network node is a potential repeater and that multihop transmission is accomplished in an ad hoc fashion without the need for complex routing protocols. In such a scenario, due to the broadcasting nature of the power line channel, multiple repeater nodes may receive and retransmit the source message simultaneously. It is shown that, if no further signal processing is applied at the transmitter, simultaneous retransmission often deteriorates performance compared with single-node retransmission. We therefore advocate the application of distributed space-time block codes (DSTBCs) to the problem at hand. More specifically, we propose that each network node is assigned a unique signature sequence, which allows efficient combining at the receiver. Most notably, DSTBC-based retransmission does not require explicit collaboration among network nodes for multihop transmission and detection complexity is not increased compared with single-node retransmission. Numerical results for multihop transmission over PLC networks show that DSTBC-based retransmission achieves a considerably improved performance in terms of required transmit power and multihop delay compared with alternative retransmission strategies.     

车载自组织网络中基于贪婪算法能地理位置路由

车载自组织网络（VANET）技术发展迅速,但由于其特殊的节点类型和信道特性,采用传统AdHoc网络路由协议无法取得满意的性能。实现高速可靠的数据传输速率,需要研究新兴的路由算法。基于贪婪算法的地理位置辅助路由是目前VANET路由的主流思路。文章认为基于这类思路的协议利用车载GPS装置、电子地图和下一代网络导航技术,能使路由发现和建立的时间大大缩短;结合已知的道路拓扑结构,选择多跳传输的最优路径,能避免路边建筑物的屏蔽效应,改善信道条件;动态评估道路上的车流密度,选择可靠性最高的传输路径,能很好地降低传输时延,提高网络吞吐能力。     

Dynamic power allocation and routing for time-varying wireless networks

We consider dynamic routing and power allocation for a wireless network with time-varying channels. The network consists of power constrained nodes that transmit over wireless links with adaptive transmission rates. Packets randomly enter the system at each node and wait in output queues to be transmitted through the network to their destinations. We establish the capacity region of all rate matrices (/spl lambda//sub ij/) that the system can stably support-where /spl lambda//sub ij/ represents the rate of traffic originating at node i and destined for node j. A joint routing and power allocation policy is developed that stabilizes the system and provides bounded average delay guarantees whenever the input rates are within this capacity region. Such performance holds for general arrival and channel state processes, even if these processes are unknown to the network controller. We then apply this control algorithm to an ad hoc wireless network, where channel variations are due to user mobility. Centralized and decentralized implementations are compared, and the stability region of the decentralized algorithm is shown to contain that of the mobile relay strategy developed by Grossglauser and Tse (2002).     

Energy Optimization in Multihop Wireless Embedded and Sensor Networks

This paper provides an analytical model for the study of energy consumption in multihop wireless embedded and sensor networks where nodes are extremely power constrained. Low-power optimization techniques developed for conventional ad hoc networks are not sufficient as they do not properly address particular features of embedded and sensor networks. It is not enough to reduce overall energy consumption, it is also important to maximize the lifetime of the entire network, that is, maintain full network connectivity for as long as possible. This paper considers different multihop scenarios to compute the energy per bit, efficiency and energy consumed by individual nodes and the network as a whole. The analysis uses a detailed model for the energy consumed by the radio at each node. Multihop topologies with equidistant and optimal node spacing are studied. Numerical computations illustrate the effects of packet routing, and explore the effects of coding and medium access control. These results show that always using a simple multihop message relay strategy is not always the best procedure.     

Application of IEEE 802.16 Mesh Networks as the Backhaul of Multihop Cellular Networks

Cellular networks have been widely used to support many new audio-and video-based multimedia applications. The demand for higher data rate and diverse services has driven the research on multihop cellular networks (MCNs). With its ad hoc network features, an MCN can offer many additional advantages, such as increased network throughput, scalability and coverage. However, providing ad hoc capability to MCNs is challenging as it may require proper wireless interfaces. In this article, the architecture of IEEE 802.16 network interface to provide ad hoc capability for MCNs is investigated, with its focus on the IEEE 802.16 mesh networking and scheduling. Several distributed routing algorithms based on network entry mechanism are studied and compared with a centralized routing algorithm. It is observed from the simulation results that 802.16 mesh networks have limitations on providing sufficient bandwidth for the traffic from the cellular base stations when a cellular network size is relatively large.     

A Distributed Channel Access Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks with Feedback Power Control

Distributed power control schemes are extensively employed in the cellular networks and are capable of improving the capacity of the network. However, the power control schemes from the cellular networks suffer from performance degradation due to self and direct-interference and hidden-terminal problems when directly employed in ad hoc networks. Most of the existing channel reservation-based power control protocols for ad hoc networks employ incremental power allocation rather than global allocation of the power to the incoming links; thus, they may not effectively utilize the spatial frequency reuse in the network. This paper presents a distributed channel access protocol that couples the channel reservation and the iterative/global transmission power control schemes in ad hoc networks. The designed protocol considers the convergence problem of the global power control in ad hoc networks. The designed access criteria employ the local admission control based on the sufficient criteria for admissibility and global power control for balancing the SIR (signal to interference ratio) of the links. In the performance evaluation study of the designed protocol, an almost twofold increase in the throughput and capacity is observed compared to the existing power-controlled protocol for ad hoc networks.     

Self‐adaptive routing protocols for integrating cellular networks,WLANs, and MANETs

A growing need to have ubiquitous connectivity has motivated our research to provide continuous connection between various wireless platforms such as cellular networks, wireless local area networks (WLANs), and mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In this paper, we consider integration at the routing layer and propose two adaptable routing protocols (IRP‐RD and IRP‐PD) that exploit topology information stored at the fixed network components (cellular base stations and WLAN access points) for the route discovery and maintenance processes. Our proposed protocols can provide connectivity to the cellular network and/or WLAN hotspots through multihop routing, while differ in the gateway discovery approach used. In IRP‐RD, multihop routes to gateways to the cellular network or WLAN hot spots are discovered on demand, while in IRP‐PD out of coverage users proactively maintain routes to the gateways. Furthermore, proposed protocols can be used in any heterogeneous scenario, combining a cellular network and WLANs operating in infrastructure or ad hoc (MANET) mode. We provide simulation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed integrated routing protocols and show the advantages and drawbacks of each gateway discovery approach in different heterogeneous scenarios. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Joint physical-MAC Layer design of the broadcast protocol in ad hoc networks

Broadcast transmission mode in ad hoc networks is critical to manage multihop routing or providing medium access control (MAC)-layer fairness. In this paper, it is shown that a higher capacity to exchange information among neighbors may be obtained through a physical-MAC cross-layer design of the broadcast protocol exploiting signal separation principles. Coherent detection and separation of contending nodes is possible through training sequences which are selected at random from a reduced set. Guidelines for the design of this set are derived for a low impact on the network performance and the receiver complexity.     

Transmission Range Effects on AODV Multicast Communication

As laptop computers begin to dominate the marketplace, wireless adapters with varying bandwidth and range capabilities are being developed by hardware vendors. To provide multihop communication between these computers, ad hoc mobile networking is receiving increasing research interest. While increasing a node's transmission range allows fewer hops between a source and destination and enhances overall network connectivity, it also increases the probability of collisions and reduces the effective bandwidth seen at individual nodes. To enable formation of multihop ad hoc networks, a routing protocol is needed to provide the communication and route finding capability in these networks. The Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing protocol (AODV) has been designed to provide both unicast and multicast communication in ad hoc mobile networks. Because AODV uses broadcast to transmit multicast data packets between nodes, the transmission range plays a key role in determining the performance of AODV. This paper studies the effects of transmission range on AODV's multicast performance by examining the results achieved at varying transmission ranges and network configurations.     

Multihop sensor network design for wide-band communications

This paper presents a master/slave cellular-based mobile ad hoc network architecture for multihop multimedia communications. The proposed network is based on a new paradigm for solving the problem of cluster-based ad hoc routing when utilizing existing wireless local area network (WLAN) technologies. The network architecture is a mixture of two different types of networks: infrastructure (master-and-slave) and ad hoc. In this architecture, the participating slave nodes (SNs) in each cluster communicate with each other via their respective master nodes (MNs) in an infrastructure network. In contrast to traditional cellular networks where the base stations are fixed (e.g., interconnected via a wired backbone), in this network the MNs (e.g., base stations) are mobile; thus, interconnection is accomplished dynamically and in an ad hoc manner. For network implementation, the IEEE 802.11 WLAN has been deployed. Since there is no stationary node in this network, all the nodes in a cluster may have to move together as a group. However, in order to allow a mobile node to move to another cluster, which requires changing its point of attachment, a handoff process utilizing Mobile IP version 6 (IPv6) has been considered. For ad hoc routing between the master nodes (i.e., MNs), the Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing protocol has been deployed. In assessing the network performance, field test trials have been carried out to measure the proposed network performance. These measurements include packet loss, delays under various test conditions such as a change of ad hoc route, handoffs, etc.     

Optimal cluster-based routing scheme using node mobility in ad hoc networks

Ad hoc networks have a scalability problem. When the nodes of an ad hoc network increase in number or mobility, the amount of control traffic for routing increases and could cause traffic congestion. Cluster-based routing schemes have been proposed as a solution to this problem. Typical cluster-based ad hoc networks use a proactive routing scheme for intra-cluster routes and a reactive routing scheme for inter-cluster routes. In this study, we propose a new cluster-based routing scheme for ad hoc networks which makes use of the mobility of nodes. Nodes are divided into two groups on the basis of their mobility. For a route search within a cluster, a proactive routing scheme is used for low-mobility nodes and a flooding-based reactive routing scheme is used for high-mobility nodes. The required control traffic of the proposed scheme is analyzed and optimal parameters of the proposed scheme are derived from the analysis. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme produces far less control traffic than a typical cluster-based routing scheme.     

OLSR performance measurement in a military mobile ad hoc network

Wireless ad hoc networks are autonomous, self-configurating and adaptive. Thus, such networks are excellent candidates for military tactical networks, where their ability to be operational rapidly and without any centralized entity is essential. As radio coverage is usually limited, multihop routing is often needed; this is achieved by an ad hoc routing protocol supporting nodes mobility. In this paper, we present performance measurements of the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) routing protocol, having the status of IETF RFC. The measurements are performed at CELAR site on a platform representative of military scenarios in urban areas. This platform consists of ten routers, eight PDAs and laptops using a IEEE 802.11b radio interface and implementing OLSR v7. Some nodes are mobile within vehicles. The emphasis of the measurements is on the performance of the network (route repair, network convergence speed, user traffic performance) in presence of this mobility.     

Ant-Based Distributed Topology Control Algorithms for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

By adjusting the transmission power of mobile nodes, topology control aims to reduce wireless interference, reduce energy consumption, and increase effective network capacity, subject to connectivity constraints. In this paper, we introduce the Ant-Based Topology Control (ABTC) algorithm that adapts the biological metaphor of Swarm Intelligence to control topology of mobile ad hoc networks. ABTC is a distributed algorithm where each node asynchronously collects local information from nearby nodes, via sending and receiving ant packets, to determine its appropriate transmission power. The operations of ABTC do not require any geographical location, angle-of-arrival, topology, or routing information, and are scalable. In particular, ABTC attempts to minimize the maximum power used by any node in the network, or minimize the total power used by all of the nodes in the network. By adapting swarm intelligence as an adaptive search mechanism, ABTC converges quickly to a good power assignment with respect to minimization objectives, and adapts well to mobility. In addition, ABTC may achieve common power, or properly assign power to nodes with non-uniform distribution. Results from a thorough comparative simulation study demonstrate the effectiveness of ABTC for different mobility speed, various density, and diverse node distributions.This work is supported in part by National Science Foundation under grant ANI-0240398.Chien-Chung Shen received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, and his Ph.D. degree from UCLA, all in computer science. He was a research scientist at Bellcore Applied Research working on control and management of broadband networks. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences of the University of Delaware, and a recipient of NSF CAREER Award. His research interests include ad hoc and sensor networks, control and management of broadband networks, distributed object and peer-to-peer computing, and simulation.Zhuochuan Huang received his B.E. degree in Computer Science and Technology from Tsinghua University, P.R. China, in 1998, and his M.S. degree in Computer Science from University of Delaware in 2000. He is currently a PhD candidate with the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Delaware. His current research interests include the design and simulation of protocols for mobile ad hoc networks.Chaiporn Jaikaeo received his B.Eng degree in computer engineering from Kasetsart University, Thailand, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer and information sciences from the University of Delaware in 1996, 1999 and 2004, respectively. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering at Kasetsart University. His research interests include unicast and multicast routing, topology control, peer-to-peer computing and network management for mobile wireless ad hoc and sensor networks.