Scalable routing in ad hoc mobile, wireless networks

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a wireless network that does not rely on pre-existing fixed communication infrastructures, but constructs instant interconnections among mobile nodes by self-organizing and self-configuring, often through multi-hopping. In ad hoc, mobile wireless networks the routing protocol is a key to efficient operation. The design of an ad hoc routing protocol is extremely challenging because of mobility, limited computational power, unpredictable radio channel behavior and constrained bandwidth. As the network grows large, an additional challenge must be faced: large number of nodes. Large number of nodes leads to large routing tables and high control traffic overhead, which significantly undermines the scalability of routing protocols.; The dissertation research proposes and studies efficient and scalable routing protocols for wireless mobile ad hoc networks in large scale, especially through effective modeling and handling mobility. The dissertation presents Dynamic Landmark Ad Hoc Routing (LANMAR) protocol as a solution to problems incurred by large network size. LANMAR truncates normal routing operations into a small routing scope, and summarizes routes to remote nodes into a few route directions. When running the protocol, not only can the mobility impact be lessened significantly, but also the routing control overhead can be reduced dramatically, leading to high routing efficiency. The scalability of LANMAR is further studied to extend to diversified application and network domains, and more important, to provide an infrastructure-wise solution to a variety of MANET routing protocols through inter-working with them. To increase the robustness and flexibility, we further develop Multiple Landmark Ad Hoc Routing to work in networks with coordinated motion patterns in large-scale or arbitrary-shaped.; The scalability of LANMAR is enabled by characterizing coordinated motion patterns, a not-so-rare phenomenon appearing in large-scale mobile wireless networks. A scheme that recognizes motion affinity among nodes and dynamically organizes them into manageable groups is proposed by the dissertation research. Combined with a group address lookup service, it considerably simplifies mobility management, and for large-scale networks, enables summarized routes over the groups.