Advanced Wireless Networks, 3rd Edition

4Ad Hoc Networks

4.1 Routing Protocols

Self-organizing wireless networks composed of mobile nodes and requiring no fixed infrastructure will be referred to as mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). These networks are characterized by dynamic topology. In other words, nodes can join or leave the network as well as they can change the range of their transmissions. Each node acts as independent router. Because of the wireless mode of communication, links will be bandwidth constrained and of variable capacity. In addition, there will be limited transmitter range, energy-limitations, and limited physical security. Medium access control (MAC) and network protocols are of a distributed nature. Also, complex routing protocols with large transmission overheads and large processing loads on each node will be used.

Dynamic Topology is illustrated in Figure 4.1.1. Node mobility creates a dynamic topology, that is, changes in the connectivity between the nodes as a direct function of the distance between each other, the characteristics of the area where they are deployed, and of course, the power of their transmitters. Node mobility and architecture reconfigurability in ad hoc networks have had a great effect on the designing of routing protocols. MANETs are used for military applications and rescue and recovery scenarios. In local areas like office, building WLANs, home networks, robot networks, sensor networks, and Personal Area Networking. Also for interconnection of wireless devices like games, ...