Trading latency for energy in densely deployed wireless ad hoc networks using message ferrying

Wireless mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have the potential for use in important application environments, such as remote environmental monitoring, where energy resources are limited. Efficient power management is necessary to allow these networks to operate over a long period of time. One of the key factors affecting the design of power management mechanisms is the routing protocol in use within the network. In this paper, we investigate the Message ferrying (MF) routing paradigm as a means to save energy while trading off data delivery delay. In MF, special nodes called ferries move around the deployment area to deliver messages for nodes. While this routing paradigm has been developed mainly to deliver messages in partitioned networks, here we explore its use in a connected MANET. The reliance on the movement of ferries to deliver messages increases the delivery delay if a network is not partitioned. However, delegating message delivery to ferries provides the opportunity for nodes to save energy by aggressively disabling their radios when ferries are far away. To exploit this feature, we present a power management framework, in which nodes switch their power management modes based on knowledge of ferry location. We evaluate the performance of our scheme using ns-2 simulations and compare it with a multihop routing protocol, dynamic source routing (DSR). Our simulation results show that MF achieves energy savings as high as 95% compared to DSR without power management and still delivers more than 98% of messages. In contrast, a power-managed DSR delivers many fewer messages than MF to achieve similar energy savings. In the scenario of heavy traffic load, the power-managed DSR delivers less than 20% of messages. MF also shows robust performance for highly mobile nodes, while the performance of DSR suffers significantly. Thus, delay tolerant applications can use MF rather than a multihop routing protocol to save energy efficiently when both routing approaches are available.     

Centralized and decentralized stochastic routing models in telecommunication networks

With the advent of non-hierarchical routing in circuit-switched telecommunication networks, on-line routing policies have been developed with the objective of optimizing some measure of gain or performance. These policies are decentralized. However, traditional planning models are centralized models. We present a decentralized routing model to be used in network planning. We compare it theoretically and empirically with a centralized multicommodity flow model previously presented. The two models are solved by the same type of algorithm, a convex simplex implementation, adapted differently according to the model. Comparative results between planning models reproducing the two policies are discussed.     

High-reliability topological architectures for networks under stress

In this paper, we consider the design of a physical network topology that meets a high level of reliability using unreliable network elements. We are motivated by the use of networks and, in particular, all-optical networks, for high-reliability applications which involve unusual and catastrophic stresses. Our network model is one in which nodes are invulnerable and links are subject to failure - a good approximation for optical networks with passive nodes and vulnerable fiber under stress of disconnection - and we focus on statistically independent link failures with initial steps taken toward generalization to dependent link failures. Our reliability metrics are the all-terminal connectedness measure and the less commonly considered two-terminal connectedness measure. We compare in the low and high stress regimes, via analytical approximations and simulations, common commercial architectures designed for all-terminal reliability when links are very reliable with alternative architectures which are mindful of both of our reliability metrics and regimes of stress. We derive new results especially for one of these alternative architectures, Harary graphs, which have been shown to possess attractive reliability properties. Furthermore, we show that for independent link failures network design should be optimized with respect to reliability under high stress, as reliability under low stress is less sensitive to graph structure; and that under high stress, very high node degrees and small network diameters are required to achieve moderate reliability performance. Finally, in our discussion of correlated failure models, we show the danger in relying on an independent failure model and the need for the network architect to minimize component failure dependencies.     

Robust load balancing under traffic uncertainty��tractable models and efficient algorithms

Routing configurations that have been optimized for a nominal traffic scenario often display significant performance degradation when they are subjected to real network traffic. These degradations are due to the inherent sensitivity of classical optimization techniques to changes in model parameters combined with the significant traffic variations caused by demand fluctuations, component failures and network reconfigurations. In this paper, we review important sources for traffic variations in data networks and describe tractable models for capturing the associated traffic uncertainty. We demonstrate how robust routing settings with guaranteed performance for all foreseen traffic variations can be effectively computed via memory efficient iterative techniques and polynomial-time algorithms. The techniques are illustrated on real data from operational IP networks.     

Variable Bit Rate Flow Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Since energy constraint is a fundamental issue for wireless sensor networks, network lifetime performance has become a key performance metric for such networks. In this paper, we consider a two-tier wireless sensor network and focus on the flow routing problem for the upper tier aggregation and forwarding nodes (AFNs). Specifically, we are interested in how to perform flow routing among the nodes when the bit rate from each source node is time-varying. We present an algorithm that can be used to construct a flow routing solution with the following properties: (1) If the average rate from each source node is known a priori, then flow routing solution obtained via such algorithm is optimal and offers provably maximum network lifetime performance; (2) If the average rate of each source node is unknown but is within a fraction (epsiv) of an estimated rate value, then network lifetime by the proposed flow routing solution is within 2epsiv/1-epsiv from the optimum. These results fill in an important gap in theoretical foundation for flow routing in energy-constrained sensor networks.     

Maximizing the Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks through Optimal Single-Session Flow Routing

Wireless sensor networks are becoming increasingly important in recent years due to their ability to detect and convey real-time, in-situ information for many civilian and military applications. A fundamental challenge for such networks lies in energy constraint, which poses a performance limit on the achievable network lifetime. We consider a two-tier wireless sensor network and address the network lifetime problem for upper-tier aggregation and forwarding nodes (AFNs). Existing flow routing solutions proposed for maximizing network lifetime require AFNs to split flows to different paths during transmission, which we call multisession flow routing solutions. If an AFN is equipped with a single transmitter/receiver pair, a multisession flow routing solution requires a packet-level power control at the AFN so as to conserve energy, which calls for considerable overhead in synchronization among the AFNs. In this paper, we show that it is possible to achieve the same optimal network lifetime by power control on a much larger timescale with the so-called single-session flow routing solutions, under which the packet-level power control and, thus, strict requirement on synchronization are not necessary. We also show how to perform optimal single-session flow routing when the bit-rate of composite flows generated by AFNs is time-varying, as long as the average bit-rate can be estimated.     

Contention-Aware Performance Analysis of Mobility-Assisted Routing

A large body of work has theoretically analyzed the performance of mobility-assisted routing schemes for intermittently connected mobile networks. But the vast majority of these prior studies have ignored wireless contention. Recent papers have shown through simulations that ignoring contention leads to inaccurate and misleading results, even for sparse networks. In this paper, we analyze the performance of routing schemes under contention. First, we introduce a mathematical framework to model contention. This framework can be used to analyze any routing scheme with any mobility and channel model. Then, we use this framework to compute the expected delays for different representative mobility-assisted routing schemes under random direction, random waypoint and community-based mobility models. Finally, we use these delay expressions to optimize the design of routing schemes while demonstrating that designing and optimizing routing schemes using analytical expressions which ignore contention can lead to suboptimal or even erroneous behavior.     

On Maximizing Transmission Reliability for Real-Time Routing in Multi-hop Wireless LANs

Three factors have been often shown to significantly affect the reliability of real-time transmission in wireless local area networks—transmission rate, power, and packet size. We analyze these factors and determine the optimal combination of factors subject to time constraints that yields the most reliable transmission of real-time data. We propose a cross-layer framework to jointly design the routing and MAC protocol combined with our optimization approach. The approach under a non-real-time routing protocol that produces a path metric is compared with a real-time routing protocol. Additionally, the real-time routing protocol enhances a guaranteed rate with our approach. Our experiments reveal that real-time performance in terms of miss ratio and throughput is significantly increased in lossy link and heavy traffic environments. Miss ratio and average throughput are improved by up to 30% over a state-of-the art routing protocol and 35% over a MAC protocol, respectively.     

Region-Based Routing: A Mechanism to Support Efficient Routing Algorithms in NoCs

An efficient routing algorithm is important for large on-chip networks [network-on-chip (NoC)] to provide the required communication performance to applications. Implementing NoC using table-based switches provide many advantages, including possibility of changing routing algorithms and fault tolerance, due to the option of table reconfigurations. However, table-based switches have been considered unsuitable for NoCs due to their perceived high area and power consumption. In this paper, we describe the region-based routing (RBR) mechanism which groups destinations into network regions allowing an efficient implementation with logic blocks. RBR can also be viewed as a mechanism to reduce the number of entries in routing tables. RBR is general and can be used in conjunction with any adaptive routing algorithm. In particular, we have evaluated the proposed scheme in conjunction with a general routing algorithm, namely segment-based routing (SR) and an Application Specific Routing Algorithm (APSRA) using regular and irregular mesh topologies. Our study shows that the number of entries in the table is significantly reduced, especially for large networks. Evaluation results show that RBR requires only four regions to support several routing algorithms in a 2-D mesh with no performance degradation. Considering link failures, our results indicate that RBR combined with SR is able to tolerate up to 7 link failures in an 8 $,times,$8 mesh. RBR also reduces area and power dissipation of an equivalent table-based implementation by factors of 8 and 10, respectively. Moreover, the degradation in performance of the network is insignificant when using APSRA combined with RBR.      

Modeling and analyzing the correctness of geographic face routing under realistic conditions

Geographic protocols are very promising for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks due to the low state storage and low message overhead. Under certain idealized conditions, geographic routing – using a combination of greedy forwarding and face routing – has been shown to work correctly and efficiently. In this work we model and analyze the correctness of geographic routing under non-ideal realistic conditions. We present a systematic methodology for micro-level behavioral analysis that shows that conditions that violate the unit-graph assumption of network connectivity, such as location errors, obstacles and radio irregularity, cause failure in planarization and consequently face routing. We then discuss the limitations of fixing these failures and prove that local algorithms that use only information up to a limited number of hops are not sufficient to guarantee face routing delivery under arbitrary connectivity. In addition, we analyze the effect of location errors in more detail to identify the possible protocol error scenarios and their conditions. We present results from an extensive simulation study about the effects of location errors on GPSR and GHT to quantify their performance degradation at different error ranges, distributions and error models. Based on our analysis we present a potential fix based on local information sharing that improves the performance significantly but does not remove all failures. Finally, we conclude that in order to avoid all failures under arbitrary connectivity, we need a non-local algorithm that can search or propagate information for an unlimited number of hops.     

The effect of mobility-induced location errors on geographic routing in mobile ad hoc sensor networks: analysis and improvement using mobility prediction

Geographic routing has been introduced in mobile ad hoc networks and sensor networks. Under ideal settings, it has been proven to provide drastic performance improvement over strictly address centric routing schemes. While geographic routing has been shown to be correct and efficient when location information is accurate, its performance in the face of location errors is not well understood. We study the effect of inaccurate location information caused by node mobility under a rich set of scenarios and mobility models. We identify two main problems, named LLNK and LOOP, that are caused by mobility-induced location errors. Based on analysis via ns-2 simulations, we propose two mobility prediction schemes - neighbor location prediction (NLP) and destination location prediction (DLP) to mitigate these problems. Simulation results show noticeable improvement under all mobility models used in our study. Under the settings we examine, our schemes achieve up to 27 percent improvement in packet delivery and 37 percent reduction in network resource wastage, on average without incurring any additional communication or intense computation.     

Analysis of automatic network management controls

The performance response of circuit-switched networks with stored program control exchanges is analyzed under nonstationary traffic conditions. Models of real time traffic measurements and dynamic flows in such networks are developed. A framework for analysis and design of state-dependent routing and flow control algorithms is provided based on concepts of various traffic measurements and different patterns of traffic nonhomogeneity. It is indicated that global performance objectives can be obtained by means of the state-dependent shortest route algorithms. Issues relevant to an implementation of different traffic control techniques are discussed. An example routing scheme is introduced and compared with known procedures     

Evaluation of multicast routing algorithms for real-timecommunication on high-speed networks

Multicast (MC) routing algorithms capable of satisfying the quality of service (QoS) requirements of real-time applications will be essential for future high-speed networks. We compare the performance of all of the important MC routing algorithms when applied to networks with asymmetric link loads. Each algorithm is judged based on the quality of the MC trees it generates and its efficiency in managing the network resources. Simulation results over random networks show that unconstrained algorithms are not capable of fulfilling the QoS requirements of real-time applications in wide-area networks. Simulations also reveal that one of the unconstrained algorithms, reverse path multicasting (RPM), is quite inefficient when applied to asymmetric networks. We study how combining routing with resource reservation and admission control improves the RPM's efficiency in managing the network resources. The performance of one semiconstrained heuristic, MSC, three constrained Steiner tree (CST) heuristics, Kompella, Pasquale, and Polyzos (1992), constrained adaptive ordering (CAO), and bounded shortest multicast algorithm (BSMA), and one constrained shortest path tree (CSPT) heuristic, the constrained Dijkstra heuristic (CDKS) are also studied. Simulations show that the semiconstrained and constrained heuristics are capable of successfully constructing MC trees which satisfy the QoS requirements of real-time traffic. However, the cost performance of the heuristics varies. The BSMA's MC trees are lower in cost than all other constrained heuristics. Finally, we compare the execution times of all algorithms, unconstrained, semiconstrained, and constrained     

An evaluation of flow control in group communication

Group communication services have been successfully used to construct applications with high availability, dependability, and real-time responsiveness requirements. Flow control techniques enable group members to manage their local buffers, which they use to temporarily store multicast updates. Despite buffer overflow being one of the main causes of process failures, flow control has not been studied much in the literature. We study different flow control techniques used in some of the group communication services and present two generic flow control techniques: a conservative and an optimistic technique. All existing flow control techniques for group communication can be classified as either conservative or optimistic. We then present discrete event simulation results that compare the effect of these two generic flow control techniques on the performance of two, different atomic multicast protocols, a positive acknowledgment protocol and a negative acknowledgment protocol, under several different operating conditions. Based on the study of differed existing flow control techniques for group communication and the results obtained from the simulation experiment, we provide some design guidelines for the design and implementation of a suitable flow control technique for a given group communication service     

A survey of cross‐layer protocols for IEEE 802.11 wireless multi‐hop mesh networks

There has been an escalation in deployment and research of wireless mesh networks by both the business community and academia in the last few years. Their attractive characteristics include low deployment cost, a low‐cost option to extend network coverage and ease of maintenance due to their self‐healing properties. Multiple routes exist between the sender and receiver nodes because of the mesh layout that ensures network connectivity even when node or link failures occur. Recent advances among others include routing metrics, optimum routing, security, scheduling, cross‐layer designs and physical layer techniques. However, there are still challenges in wireless mesh networks as discussed in this paper that need to be addressed. Cross‐layer design allows information from adjacent and non‐adjacent layers to be used at a particular layer for performance improvement. This paper presents a survey of cross‐layer protocol design approaches applied to the IEEE 802.11 standards for wireless multi‐hop mesh networks that have been proposed over the last few years for improved performance. We summarize the current research efforts in cross‐layer protocol design using the IEEE 802.11 standard in identifying unsolved issues that are a promising avenue to further research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attack Vulnerability of Complex Communication Networks

The Internet has been studied as a typical example of real-world complex networks. In this brief, we study the traffic performance of the Internet when it encounters a random or intentional attack. Different from previous approaches, the congestion control protocols are considered so that the bandwidth can be reallocated among flows. In this way, cascading breakdown is less likely to happen. The flow rates are adjusted when a node is attacked and out of function. Consequently, the traffic utility and the utilization ratio of bandwidth are affected. We compare the real Internet data with the classic random graph and scale-free network models. The simulated results also show that the ldquorobust yet fragilerdquo property previously observed in the study of cascading failures in the scale-free networks is still valid in this scenario.     

Design and Performance of PRAN: A System for Physical Implementation of Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols

Simulation and physical implementation are both valuable tools in evaluating ad hoc network routing protocols, but neither alone is sufficient. In this paper, we present the design and performance of PRAN, a new system for the physical implementation of ad hoc network routing protocols that unifies these two types of evaluation methodologies. PRAN (physical realization of ad hoc networks) allows existing simulation models of ad hoc network routing protocols to be used - without modification - to create a physical implementation of the same protocol. We have evaluated the simplicity and portability of our approach across multiple protocols and multiple operating systems through example implementations in PRAN of the DSR and AODV routing protocols in FreeBSD and Linux using the standard existing, unmodified ns-2 simulation model of each. We illustrate the ability of the resulting protocol implementations to handle real, demanding applications by describing a demonstration with this DSR implementation transmitting real-time video streams over a multihop mobile ad hoc network; the demonstration features mobile robots being remotely operated based on the real-time video stream transmitted from the robot over the network. We also present a detailed performance evaluation of PRAN to show the feasibility of our architecture     

Buffered fixed routing: a routing protocol for real-time transportin grid networks

We propose a new routing protocol called buffered fixed routing (BFR) for real-time applications on grid networks. While previous routing protocols for grid networks have been designed to improve network throughput, the BFR scheme is proposed to guarantee the end-to-end packet delay and sequencing without loss by using finite buffers at each node. Thus the proposed scheme can satisfy quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of real-time applications. The BFR scheme uses the token on the row ring to provide QoS guarantees. The performance of the BFR scheme is analyzed by using the Geom/Geom/1 queueing system under uniform traffic. In the simulation, the BFR scheme shows the zero-loss, high-throughput performance with the minimum delay variation compared to other routing protocols such as store and forward routing, deflection routing and vertical routing. In addition, it has shown the smallest average delay at intermediate and heavy loads     

Comparison of Routing Procedures for Circuit-Switched Traffic in Nonhierarchical Networks

In this paper, we compare the use of different types of routing procedures for circuit-switched traffic in nonhierarchical networks. The main performance criterion used is the end-to-end blocking probability. The results show that if the network traffic is light, alternate routing performs better than nonalternate routing, but if the network traffic is heavy, the situation is reversed. To improve the performance of networks using alternate routing, different types of strategies varying from fixed control to dynamic control are introduced. A comparison based on numerical examples shows the improvement in performance attained by using a dynamic control strategy compared to fixed control. Good control techniques result in nonalternate routing under heavy traffic loads; nonalternate routing is the most viable alternative in nonhierarchical networks under heavy traffic conditions.