Ad Hoc Networking

TLDR: In this article, the authors present a series of technical papers about ad hoc networks from a variety of laboratories and experts, and explain the latest thinking on how mobile devices can best discover, identify, and communicate with other devices in the vicinity.

Abstract: Ad hoc networks are to computing devices what Yahoo Personals are to single people: both help individuals communicate productively with strangers while maintaining security. Under the rules of ad hoc networking--which continue to evolve--your mobile phone can, when placed in proximity to your handheld address book, establish a little network on its own and enable data sharing between the two devices. In Ad Hoc Networking, Charles Perkins has compiled a series of technical papers about networking on the fly from a variety of laboratories and experts. The collection explains the latest thinking on how mobile devices can best discover, identify, and communicate with other devices in the vicinity. In this treatment, ad hoc networking covers a broad swath of situations. An ad hoc network might consist of several home-computing devices, plus a notebook computer that must exist on home and office networks without extra administrative work. Such a network might also need to exist when the people and equipment in normally unrelated military units need to work together in combat. Though the papers in this book are much more descriptive of protocols and algorithms than of their implementations, they aim individually and collectively at commercialization and popularization of mobile devices that make use of ad hoc networking. You'll enjoy this book if you're involved in researching or implementing ad hoc networking capabilities for mobile devices. --David Wall Topics covered: The state-of-the-art in protocols and algorithms to be used in ad hoc networks of mobile devices that move in and out of proximity to one another, to fixed resources like printers, and to Internet connectivity. Routing with Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), and other resource-discovery and routing protocols; the effects of ad hoc networking on bandwidth consumption; and battery life.