This thesis addresses a novel type of network known as a mobile ad hoc
network. A mobile ad hoc network is a collection of entirely mobile nodes
that can establish communication in the absence of any fixed infrastructure.
Envisioned applications of these networks include virtual classrooms, emergency
relief operations, military tactical communications, sensor networks
and community networking.
Mobile ad hoc networking poses several new challenges in the design of
network protocols. This thesis focuses on the routing problem. The main
challenges in the design of a routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks result
from them having limited resources and there being frequent topological
changes that occur unpredictably. Moreover, there is no fixed infrastructure
that supports routing. The conventional routing protocols are not generally
suitable for mobile ad hoc networks, as they cannot react quickly to the
changing network topology, cause excessive communication and computation,
or converge very slowly creating routing loops.
In this thesis we propose two classes of routing schemes for mobile ad hoc
networks. The first class is known as Limited Flooding Protocol. The protocol
is fully reactive and does not require the computation of routing tables. It
uses some basic principles of flooding, but reduces the communication overhead
by restricting packet propagation through the network. Several variations
of limited flooding are considered including deterministic, randomised
and priority-based mechanisms. The main advantage of this protocol is that
it can be used in networks with unpredictable topological changes and highly
mobile nodes, since maintaining routing table at the intermediate nodes is
not required.
The second class of routing protocols is based on hierarchical clustering
architecture and is intended for use in a relatively low mobility environment.
The basic idea of this protocol is to partition the entire network into smaller
units known as clusters and define routing mechanisms both within and between
clusters using a hierarchical architecture. The main advantage of this
architecture is reduction of storage requirements of routing information, communication
overhead and computational overhead at each node.
Discrete-event simulation is used for modelling and performance evaluation.
Various options and variations of the protocols are examined in the…[Page 2 of abstract is missing.] / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/4421 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Kabeto, Mieso Denko. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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