Hash-Based Virtual Hierarchies for Scalable Location Service in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

A location service is an essential prerequisite for geographic routing protocols for MANETs. We present VHLS, a new distributed location service protocol, that features a dynamic location server selection mechanism and adapts to network traffic workload, minimizing the overall location service overhead. We demonstrate that the ratio of location queries to updates is an important performance parameter in such protocols. Our analysis and simulations show that VHLS provides better query success rates, location service quality, and geographic routing performance than the GLS and GHLS protocols. VHLS also scales well as the network size and traffic workload increases.