A Review of the Energy Efficient and Secure Multicast Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

This paper presents a thorough survey of recent work addressing energy efficient multicast routing protocols and secure multicast routing protocols in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). There are so many issues and solutions which witness the need of energy management and security in ad hoc wireless networks. The objective of a multicast routing protocol for MANETs is to support the propagation of data from a sender to all the receivers of a multicast group while trying to use the available bandwidth efficiently in the presence of frequent topology changes. Multicasting can improve the efficiency of the wireless link when sending multiple copies of messages by exploiting the inherent broadcast property of wireless transmission. Secure multicast routing plays a significant role in MANETs. However, offering energy efficient and secure multicast routing is a difficult and challenging task. In recent years, various multicast routing protocols have been proposed for MANETs. These protocols have distinguishing features and use different mechanismsComment: 15 page

Smart-Its - communication and sensing technology for UbiComp environments

More and more Ubiquitous computing scenarios arise where computers are embedded into everyday objects as secondary ariefacts. The need for a generic platform to enhance such artifacts is addressed by the Smart-Its project. TecOs Smart- Its are small-scale embedded computer devices that can be easily attached to everyday objects and simply programmed for a special task. Just like paper Post-Its are able to add some information to an object a Smart-Its could add some computing, perception and communication capability to an object. All this capability was integrated into the tiny Smart-Its board itself that is able to operate without any additional infrastructure. This paper introduces the architecture of the Smart-Its hardware, the design decisions for the hardware itself and presents experiences we made while constructing and operating these devices; some of these experience are also based on the deployment and use of the first 160 Smart-Its devices

Route discovery based on energy-distance aware routing scheme for MANET

Route discovery proses in a Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is challenging due to the limitation of energy at each network node. The energy constraint limits network connection lifetime thus affecting the routing process. Therefore, it is necessary for each node in the network to calculate routing factor in terms of energy and distance in deciding optimal candidate relay nodes needed to forward packets. This study proposes a new route discovery mechanism called the Energy-Distance Routing Aware (EDRA) that determines the selection of nodes during route discovery process to improve the network connection lifetime. This mechanism comprises of three schemes namely the Energy-Distance Factor Aware (EDFA), the Energy-Distance Forward Strategy (EDFS), and the Energy-Aware Route Selection (EARS). The EDFA scheme begins by calculating each nodes energy level (ei) and the distance (di) to the neighbouring nodes to produce the energy-distance factor value used in selecting the relay nodes. Next, the EDFS scheme forwards route request packets within discovery area of relay nodes based on the number of nodes. Then, the EARS scheme selects stable routing path utilising updated status information from EDFA and EDFS. The evaluation of EDRA mechanism is performed using network simulator Ns2 based on a defined set of performance metrics, scenarios and network scalability. The experimental results show that the EDRA gains significant improvement in the network connection lifetime when compared to those of the similar mechanisms, namely the AODV and the DREAM. EDRA also optimises energy consumption by utilising efficient forwarding decisions on varying scale of network nodes. Moreover, EDRA maximizes network connection lifetime while preserving throughput and packet drop ratio. This study contributes toward developing an efficient energy-aware routing to sustain longer network connection lifetime in MANET environment. The contribution is significant in promoting the use of green and sustainable next generation network technology

The Design and Implementation of a Low Power Ad Hoc Protocol Stack

Low power consumption is a key design metric for wireless network devices that have limited battery energy. The problem of reducing power consumption needs to be addressed at every level of system design. This paper investigates the issues of designing low power protocols in the context of the PEN system, a mobile ad hoc network developed at AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. It describes the ad hoc protocols that have been implemented, outlining both the design of individual protocols and the structure of the overall stack. The powerrelevant mechanisms from the various protocols are collated in a summary

On the coordinated use of a sleep mode in wireless sensor networks : ripple rendezvous

It is widely accepted that low energy consumption is the most important requirement when designing components and systems for a wireless sensor network (WSN). The greatest energy consumer of each node within a WSN is the radio transceiver and as such, it is important that this component be used in an extremely energy e±cient manner. One method of reducing the amount of energy consumed by the radio transceiver is to turn it off and allow nodes to enter a sleep mode. The algorithms that directly control the radio transceiver are traditionally grouped into the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer of a communication protocol stack. This thesis introduces the emerging field of wireless sensor networks and outlines the requirements of a MAC protocol for such a network. Current MAC protocols are reviewed in detail with a focus on how they utilize this energy saving sleep mode as well as performance problems that they suffer from. A proposed new method of coordinating the use of this sleep mode between nodes in the network is specifed and described. The proposed new protocol is analytically compared with existing protocols as well as with some fundamental performance limits. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the results as well as some recommendations for future work