Testbed on MANET (ToM): private testbed facility for MANET Experiment

This article aims to share how to create a minimum MANET testbed facility as a requirement for evaluation of MANET research. Testbed facility that we have developed is called as Testbed on MANET or abbreviation ToM. We chose to use single board computer (SBC) to represent mobile devices in MANET. ToM facility and can be used either in a static mesh network or in a dynamic network topology, where each node in the testbed can move according to the needs of the researcher. To realize a real world node mobility in ToM, we use mobile robot technology and mobile robot that we have develop, where we named it as ToMRobot. Our experience in developing a ToM facility proves that with today’s technological developments, the private MANET testbed facility can be developed more easily at low cost

System-level Support for Mobile Ad hoc Communications: an Algorithmic & Practical Approach

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized and infrastructure-less network. This thesis aims to provide support at the system-level for developers of applications or protocols in such networks. To do this, we propose contributions in both the algorithmic realm and in the practical realm. In the algorithmic realm, we contribute to the field by proposing different context-aware broadcast and multicast algorithms in MANETs, namely six-shot broadcast, six-shot multicast, PLAN-B and ageneric algorithmic approach to optimize the power consumption of existing algorithms. For each algorithm we propose, we compare it to existing algorithms that are either probabilistic or context-aware, and then we evaluate their performance based on simulations. We demonstrate that in some cases, context-aware information, such as location or signal-strength, can improve the effciency. In the practical realm, we propose a testbed framework, namely ManetLab, to implement and to deploy MANET-specific protocols, and to evaluate their performance. This testbed framework aims to increase the accuracy of performance evaluation compared to simulations, while keeping the ease of use offered by the simulators to reproduce a performance evaluation. By evaluating the performance of different probabilistic algorithms with ManetLab, we observe that both simulations and testbeds should be used in a complementary way. In addition to the above original contributions, we also provide two surveys about system-level support for ad hoc communications in order to establish a state of the art. The first is about existing broadcast algorithms and the second is about existing middleware solutions and the way they deal with privacy and especially with location privacy. - Un réseau mobile ad hoc (MANET) est un réseau avec une architecture décentralisée et sans infrastructure. Cette thèse vise à fournir un support adéquat, au niveau système, aux développeurs d'applications ou de protocoles dans de tels réseaux. Dans ce but, nous proposons des contributions à la fois dans le domaine de l'algorithmique et dans celui de la pratique. Nous contribuons au domaine algorithmique en proposant différents algorithmes de diffusion dans les MANETs, algorithmes qui sont sensibles au contexte, à savoir six-shot broadcast,six-shot multicast, PLAN-B ainsi qu'une approche générique permettant d'optimiser la consommation d'énergie de ces algorithmes. Pour chaque algorithme que nous proposons, nous le comparons à des algorithmes existants qui sont soit probabilistes, soit sensibles au contexte, puis nous évaluons leurs performances sur la base de simulations. Nous montrons que, dans certains cas, des informations liées au contexte, telles que la localisation ou l'intensité du signal, peuvent améliorer l'efficience de ces algorithmes. Sur le plan pratique, nous proposons une plateforme logicielle pour la création de bancs d'essai, intitulé ManetLab, permettant d'implémenter, et de déployer des protocoles spécifiques aux MANETs, de sorte à évaluer leur performance. Cet outil logiciel vise à accroître la précision desévaluations de performance comparativement à celles fournies par des simulations, tout en conservant la facilité d'utilisation offerte par les simulateurs pour reproduire uneévaluation de performance. En évaluant les performances de différents algorithmes probabilistes avec ManetLab, nous observons que simulateurs et bancs d'essai doivent être utilisés de manière complémentaire. En plus de ces contributions principales, nous fournissons également deux états de l'art au sujet du support nécessaire pour les communications ad hoc. Le premier porte sur les algorithmes de diffusion existants et le second sur les solutions de type middleware existantes et la façon dont elles traitent de la confidentialité, en particulier celle de la localisation

Six-shot multicast: A location-aware strategy for efficient message routing in MANETs

In this paper, we introduce six-shot multicast (6Shot), a location-aware multicast algorithm devised for mobile ad hoc networks. Multicast is a one-to-many communication scheme and has largely been studied in such networks. Indeed, this communication primitive can be used as a building block for popular services, such as data streaming or group communication. The particularity of 6Shot is the location- aware routing scheme of its implementation, which offers improved efficiency in terms of message overhead compared to existing algorithms, for a reasonable cost in terms of reliability

Context-aware broadcasting approaches in mobile ad hoc networks

The aim of this paper is to compare different context-aware broadcasting approaches in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and to evaluate their respective performances. Message broadcasting is one of the core challenges brought up by distributed systems and has therefore largely been studied in the context of traditional network structures, such as the Internet. With the emergence of MANETs, new broadcasting algorithms especially geared at these networks have been introduced. The goal of these broadcasting algorithms is to ensure that a maximum number of nodes deliver the broadcasted message (reliability), while ensuring that the minimum number of nodes retransmit the broadcasted message (efficiency), in order to save their resources, such as bandwidth or battery. In recent years, as more and more mobile devices have become context-aware, several broadcasting algorithms have been introduced that take advantage of contextual information in order to improve their performance. We distinguish four approaches with respect to context: (1) context-oblivious approaches, (2) network traffic-aware approaches, (3) power-aware approaches, and (4) location-aware approaches. This paper precisely aims at presenting these four different broadcasting approaches and at measuring the performance of algorithms built upon them

Middleware for location privacy: an overview

As context-aware mobile applications become increasingly common, privacy issues hit headlines again. Users are faced with a trade-off. On one hand, releasing information about their location allows them to take advantage of new location-based services. On the other hand, releasing such information raises privacy issues about the potential inadequate or even malicious use of location information. Location-based tourist information is a typical service that needs to overcome this tension in order to succeed. Thus, programming such services is challenging in two aspects. First, there is the inherent burden of programming distributed context-aware software. Second, there is the challenge of programming such software in a way that guarantees user privacy. Providing adequate middleware can alleviate the programming burden. In this paper, we provide an analysis of various existing privacy-enabling middleware that can be used to provide programming support for it

Six-shot Broadcast: a context-aware algorithm for efficient message diffusion in MANETs

In this paper, we introduce six-shot broadcast (6SB), a new context-aware message diffusion algorithm that uses location information to fine-tune its broadcasting process. Message diffusion is indeed one of the core challenges brought up by distributed systems and has therefore largely been studied in the context of traditional network structures such as the Internet. With the emergence of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), new broadcasting algorithm especially geared at these networks have been introduced. These algorithms must reach two conflicting objectives when broadcasting a message, namely reliability vs. efficiency. That is, they must maximize the number of nodes that deliver the message (reliability), while minimizing the number of nodes that forward the message (efficiency). In recent years as more and more mobile devices have become context-aware, several broadcasting algorithms have been introduced using contextual information, such as location, in order to increase reliability and efficiency. Along that line, we provide a in-depth performance evaluation of our 6SB algorithm, by comparing it to similar broadcasting algorithms also targeted at MANETs. Our results show that 6SB competes with the most efficient algorithms in high densities of nodes and offers increased reliability in low densities at a reasonable overhead

Developing, Deploying and Evaluating Protocols with ManetLab

Evaluating the performance of MANET-specific communication protocols is essential to build robust mobile ad hoc applications. Unfortunately, most existing evaluation results are either based on simulations - which makes it difficult to draw conclusions beyond confined lab settings - or they are based on custom testbed results - which makes it difficult to reproduce them. In order to overcome this challenge, we introduce ManetLab, a modular and configurable software framework for creating and running testbeds to evaluate MANET-specific protocols. With ManetLab, one can easily configure and automate reproducible protocol executions on standard computer hardware, and thus provides both the accuracy of testbed-based evaluations and the reproducibility of simulation-based evaluations. After presenting ManetLab's extensible architecture, based on the notion of modular protocol stack, we show how it helps evaluate the performance of different broadcast protocols in real MANETs and how its results compare with simulation-based results

Injecting Power-Awareness into Epidemic Information Dissemination in Sensor Networks

This paper presents and evaluates a novel approach to decrease the power consumption of epidemic information dissemination in sensor networks. In essence, our strategy consists in modulating the transmission range of sensors before they send messages. Since the range modulation follows a power-law probability distribution, we qualify our approach to information dissemination as being a power-law. An obvious consequence of this strategy is that many nodes can reach few neighbors, while few nodes can reach many neighbors. To evaluate the effects of our approach, we inject the power-law range modulation into four existing epidemic algorithms and we compare their performances with their original versions, based on a fixed transmission range or on a uniform distribution of transmission ranges. This evaluation shows that our power-law approach improves the efficiency of the original algorithms in terms of power consumption, with no negative impact of their effectiveness, measured in terms of how many nodes have been reached after the dissemination