Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self-organize into arbitrary and temporary, ‘‘ad-hoc’’ network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internetwork in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyperlan are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of this dynamic field. It first explains the important role that mobile ad hoc networks play in the evolution of future wireless technologies. Then, it reviews the latest research activities in these areas, including a summary of MANETs characteristics, capabilities, applications, and design constraints. The paper concludes by presenting a set of challenges and problems requiring further research in the future. � 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

/pdf/mobile-ad-hoc-networking-imperatives-and-challenges-56mord86q0.pdf

Mobile ad hoc networking: imperatives and challenges

Topology Control (TC) is one of the most important techniques used in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks to reduce energy consumption (which is essential to extend the network operational time) and radio interference (with a positive effect on the network traffic carrying capacity). The goal of this technique is to control the topology of the graph representing the communication links between network nodes with the purpose of maintaining some global graph property (e.g., connectivity), while reducing energy consumption and/or interference that are strictly related to the nodes' transmitting range. In this article, we state several problems related to topology control in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, and we survey state-of-the-art solutions which have been proposed to tackle them. We also outline several directions for further research which we hope will motivate researchers to undertake additional studies in this field.

/pdf/topology-control-in-wireless-ad-hoc-and-sensor-networks-3e17u396zt.pdf

Topology Control in Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

Recently, many efforts have been made to develop more efficient Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) protocols for on-demand route planning according to observed traffic congestion or incidents, as well as for safety applications. Because practical experiments are often not feasible, simulation of network protocol behavior in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) scenarios is strongly demanded for evaluating the applicability of developed network protocols. In this work, we discuss the need for bidirectional coupling of network simulation and road traffic microsimulation for evaluating IVC protocols. As the selection of a mobility model influences the outcome of simulations to a great extent, the use of a representative model is necessary for producing meaningful evaluation results. Based on these observations, we developed the hybrid simulation framework Veins (Vehicles in Network Simulation), composed of the network simulator OMNeT++ and the road traffic simulator SUMO. In a proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate its advantages and the need for bidirectionally coupled simulation based on the evaluation of two protocols for incident warning over VANETs. With our developed methodology, we can advance the state-of-the-art in performance evaluation of IVC and provide means to evaluate developed protocols more accurately.

/pdf/bidirectionally-coupled-network-and-road-traffic-simulation-59x3tw1e3m.pdf

Bidirectionally Coupled Network and Road Traffic Simulation for Improved IVC Analysis

The random waypoint model is a commonly used mobility model in the simulation of ad hoc networks It is known that the spatial distribution of network nodes moving according to this model is, in general, nonuniform However, a closed-form expression of this distribution and an in-depth investigation is still missing This fact impairs the accuracy of the current simulation methodology of ad hoc networks and makes it impossible to relate simulation-based performance results to corresponding analytical results To overcome these problems, we present a detailed analytical study of the spatial node distribution generated by random waypoint mobility More specifically, we consider a generalization of the model in which the pause time of the mobile nodes is chosen arbitrarily in each waypoint and a fraction of nodes may remain static for the entire simulation time We show that the structure of the resulting distribution is the weighted sum of three independent components: the static, pause, and mobility component This division enables us to understand how the model's parameters influence the distribution We derive an exact equation of the asymptotically stationary distribution for movement on a line segment and an accurate approximation for a square area The good quality of this approximation is validated through simulations using various settings of the mobility parameters In summary, this article gives a fundamental understanding of the behavior of the random waypoint model

The node distribution of the random waypoint mobility model for wireless ad hoc networks

The Node Distribution of the Random Waypoint Mobiligy Model for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

This study examines the random waypoint model widely used in the simulation studies of mobile ad hoc networks. Our findings show that this model fails to provide a steady state in that the average nodal speed consistently decreases over time, and therefore should not be directly used for simulation. We show how unreliable results can be obtained by using this model. In particular, certain ad hoc routing metrics can drop by as much as 40% over the course of a 900-second simulation using the random waypoint model. We give both an intuitive and a formal explanation for this phenomenon. We also propose a simple fix of the problem and discuss a few alternatives. Our modified random waypoint model is able to reach a steady state and simulation results are presented.

/pdf/random-waypoint-considered-harmful-4wkn6lpukr.pdf

J. Yoon

Papers

Random waypoint considered harmful