Virtual Router Approach For Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Wireless networks have become increasingly popular in recent years. There are two variations of mobile wireless networks: infrastructure mobile networks and infrastructureless mobile networks. The latter are also known as mobile ad hoc network (MANET). MANETs have no fixed routers. Instead, mobile nodes function as relay nodes or routers, which discover and maintain communication connections between source nodes and destination nodes for various data transmission sessions. In other words, an MANET is a self-organizing multi-hop wireless network in which all nodes within a given geographical area participate in the routing and data forwarding process. Such networks are scalable and self-healing. They support mobile applications where an infrastructure is either not available (e.g., rescue operations and underground networks) or not desirable (e.g., harsh industrial environments). In many ad hoc networks such as vehicular networks, links among nodes change constantly and rapidly due to high node speed. Maintaining communication links of an established communication path that extends between source and destination nodes is a significant challenge in mobile ad hoc networks due to movement of the mobile nodes. In particular, such communication links are often broken under a high mobility environment. Communication links can also be broken by obstacles such as buildings in a street environment that block radio signal. In a street environment, obstacles and fast moving nodes result in a very short window of communication between nodes on different streets. Although a new communication route can be established when a break in the communication path occurs, repeatedly reestablishing new routes incurs delay and substantial overhead. To address this iv limitation, we introduce the Virtual Router abstraction in this dissertation. A virtual router is a dynamically-created logical router that is associated with a particular geographical area. Its routing functionality is provided by the physical nodes (i.e., mobile devices) currently within the geographical region served by the virtual router. These physical nodes take turns in forwarding data packets for the virtual router. In this environment, data packets are transmitted from a source node to a destination node over a series of virtual routers. Since virtual routers do not move, this scheme is much less susceptible to node mobility. There can be two virtual router approaches: Static Virtual Router (SVR) and Dynamic Virtual Router (DVR). In SVR, the virtual routers are predetermined and shared by all communication sessions over time. This scheme requires each mobile node to have a map of the virtual routers, and use a global positioning system (GPS) to determine if the node is within the geographical region of a given router. DVR is different from SVR with the following distinctions: (1) virtual routers are dynamically created for each communication sessions as needed, and deprecated after their use; (2) mobile nodes do not need to have a GPS; and (3) mobile nodes do not need to know whereabouts of the virtual routers. In this dissertation, we apply Virtual Router approach to address mobility challenges in routing data. We first propose a data routing protocol that uses SVR to overcome the extreme fast topology change in a street environment. We then propose a routing protocol that does not require node locations by adapting a DVR approach. We also explore how the Virtual Router Approach can reduce the overhead associated with initial route or location requests used by many existing routing protocols to find a destination. An initial request for a destination is expensive v because all the nodes need to be reached to locate the destination. We propose two broadcast protocols; one in an open terrain environment and the other in a street environment. Both broadcast protocols apply SVR. We provide simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocols in handling high mobility. They show Virtual Router approach can achieve several times better performance than traditional routing and broadcast approach based on physical routers (i.e., relay nodes

Effect of real video streaming over virtual MANET environment

Wireless Ad hoc Network is promising in solving many challenging real-world communication problems. Examples of these are: military field operation, emergency response system, and oil drilling and mining operation. However, the wide deployment of this type of network is still a challenging task. It is very difficult to manage quality of services for real time applications like video transmission over mobile nodes. Mobile ad hoc networks are not so resilient and reliable because of their dynamic topology due to the mobile nodes and impact of environmental circumstances. However, it provides multiple routes from the source to the destination, which gives extra redundancy for video and data transmission. In this research work, I will analyze the effect of real video streaming in virtual simulation environment using mobile ad hoc network, terrain modeling module and the System-in-the-loop modules from the OPNET modeling tool

Self-Stabilizing Message Routing in Mobile ad hoc Networks

We present a self-stabilizing algorithm for routing messages between arbitrary pairs of nodes in a mobile ad hoc network. Our algorithm assumes the availability of a reliable GPS service, which supplies mobile nodes with accurate information about real time and about their own geographical locations. The GPS service provides an external, shared source of consistency for mobile nodes, allowing them to label and timestamp messages, and thereby aiding in recovery from failures. Our algorithm utilizes a Virtual Infrastructure programming abstraction layer, consisting of mobile client nodes, virtual stationary timed machines called Virtual Stationary Automata (VSAs), and a local broadcast service connecting VSAs and mobile clients. VSAs are associated with predetermined regions in the plane, and are emulated in a self-stabilizing manner by the mobile nodes. VSAs are relatively stable in the face of node mobility and failure, and can be used to simplify algorithm development for mobile networks. Our routing algorithm consists of three subalgorithms: [(1)] a VSA-to-VSA geographical routing algorithm, [2] a mobile client location management algorithm, and [3] the main algorithm, which utilizes both location management and geographical routing. All three subalgorithms are self-stabilizing, and consequently, the entire algorithm is also self-stabilizing

Localization Enhanced Mobile Networks

The interest in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) and often more precisely vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) is steadily growing with many new applications, and even anticipated support in the emerging 5G networks. Particularly in outdoor scenarios, there are different mechanisms to make the mobile nodes aware of their geographical location at all times. The location information can be utilized at different layers of the protocol stack to enhance communication services in the network. Specifically, geographical routing can facilitate route management with smaller overhead than the traditional proactive and reactive routing protocols. In order to achieve similar advantages for radio resource management (RRM) and multiple access protocols, the concept of virtual cells is devised to exploit fully distributed knowledge of node locations. The virtual cells define clusters of MANET nodes assuming a predefined set of geographically distributed anchor points. It enables fast response of the network to changes in the nodes spatial configuration. More importantly, the notion of geographical location can be generalized to other shared contexts which can be learned or otherwise acquired by the network nodes. The strategy of enhancing communication services by shared contexts is likely to be one of the key features in the beyond-5G networks

Cooperation Enforcement in a Highly Dynamic Mobile Ad Hoc Network

Operations of mobile ad hoc networks rely on the collaboration of participating nodes to route data for each other. This standard approach using a fixed set of nodes for each communication link cannot cope with high mobility due to a high frequency of link breaks. A recent approach based on virtual routers has been proposed to address this problem. In this new environment, virtual routers are used for forwarding data. The functionality of each virtual router is provided by the mobile devices currently within its spatial proximity. Since these routers do not move, the communication links are much more robust compared to those of the conventional techniques. In this paper, we investigate techniques to enforce collaboration among mobile devices by identify and punish misbehaving users in supporting the virtual router functionality. Simulation results based on various system configurations are given. They indicate that the proposed technique is effective

The design and simulation of routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.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.]Page 2 of abstract is missing

Design of Simulator for Energy Efficient Clustering in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The research on various issues in Mobile ad hoc networks are getting popularity because of its challenging nature and all time connectivity to communicate. MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Networks) is a random deployable network where devices are mobile with dynamic topology. In the network topology, each device is termed as a node and the virtual connectivity among each node is termed as the link .Nodes in a network are dynamically organized into virtual partitions called clusters. Network simulators provide the platform to analyse and imitate the working of computer networks along with the typical devices, traffic and other entities. Cluster heads being the communication hotspots tend to drain its battery power rapidly while serving its member nodes. Further, energy consumption is a key factor that hinders the deploy ability of a real ad hoc and sensor network. It is due to the limited life time of the battery powered devices that motivates intense research into energy efficient design of operating systems, protocols and hardware devices. Clustering is a proven solution to preserve the battery power of certain nodes. In the mechanism of clustering, there exists a cluster head in every cluster that works similar to a base station in the cellular architecture. Cluster heads being the communication hotspots tend to drain its battery power rapidly while serving its member nodes. Further, energy consumption is a key factor that hinders the deploy ability of a real ad hoc and sensor network. It is due to the limited life time of the battery powered devices that motivates intense research into energy efficient design of operating systems, protocols and hardware devices. The mobile ad hoc network can be modelled as a unidirectional graph G = (V, L) where V is the set of mobile nodes and L is the set of links that exist between the nodes. We assume that there exists a bidirectional link L between the nodes and when the distance between the nodes < (transmission range) of the nodes. In the dynamic network the cardinality of the nodes remains constant, but the cardinality of links changes due to the mobility of the nodes. Network simulators are used by researchers, developers and engineers to design various kinds of networks, simulate and then analyze the effect of various parameters on the network performance. A typical network simulator encompasses a wide range of networking technologies and can help the users to build complex networks from basic building blocks such as a variety of nodes and links. The objective of our work is to design a simulator for energy efficient clustering so that the data flow as well as the control flow could be easily handled and maintained. The proposed energy efficient clustering algorithm is a distributed algorithm that takes into account the consumed battery power of a node and its average transmission power for serving the neighbour nodes as the parameters to decide its suitability to act as a cluster head. These two parameters are added with different weight factors to find the weights of the individual nodes. After the clusters are formed, gateway nodes are selected in the network that help for the inter cluster communication. The graph for the number of cluster heads selected for different number of nodes are also drawn to study the functionality of the simulator

Study of different mobility models and clustering algorithms like weighted clustering algorithm (WCA) and dynamic moblity adaptive clustering algorithm (DMAC)

This project addresses issues pertaining to mobile multi-hop radio networks called mobile ad hoc networks (MANET), which plays a critical role in places where a wired backbone is neither available nor economical to deploy. Our objective was to form and maintain clusters for efficient routing, scalability and energy utilization. To map the cellular architecture into the mobile ad hoc network cluster heads are elected that form the virtual backbone for packet transmission. However, the constant movement of the nodes changes the topology of the network, which perturbs the transmission. This demands the cluster maintenance. Weighed Clustering Algorithm (WCA)[4] and Distributed and Mobility adaptive Clustering (DMAC) [1,2,3] are two better proven algorithms on which we have implemented different mobility models like Random Walk (RW), Random Way Point (RWP) and Random Direction (RD). In both the algorithms each node is assigned some weight .In WCA the weight is a function of parameters like Battery power, mobility, transmission range and degree of connectivity. DMAC is mobility adaptive, i.e. it takes the mobility of the nodes into consideration while forming the clusters. We have chosen some measuring parameters like no of clusterheads, Average cluster lifetime, and Reaffilation rate for comparing the performance of both the algorithms

MITIGATING NODE ISOLATION ATTACK IN OLSR PROTOCOL USING DCFM TECHNIQUE

A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile devices which are connected by wireless links without the use of any fixed infrastructures or centralized access points. The Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol is an important proactive routing protocol designed for mobile ad hoc networks. It employs periodic exchange of messages to maintain topology information of the network at each node. Based on topology information, each node is able to calculate the optimal route to a destination. One major DoS attack against the Optimized Link State Routing protocol (OLSR) known as the node isolation attack occurs when topological knowledge of the network is exploited by an attacker who is able to isolate the victim from the rest of the network and subsequently deny communication services to the victim. The proposed method named Denial Contradictions with Fictitious Node Mechanism (DCFM) relies on the internal knowledge acquired by each node during routine routing, and augmentation of virtual (fictitious) nodes. Moreover, DCFM utilizes the same techniques used by the attack in order to prevent it. DCFM successfully prevents the attack, specifically in the realistic scenario in which all nodes in the network are mobile