AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.

AD HOC NETWORKS
Unit - I
INTRODUCTION AND ROUTING
PROTOCOLS
Elements of Ad hoc Wireless Networks, Issues in Ad hoc wireless
networks, Example commercial applications of Ad hoc networking, Ad
hoc wireless Internet, Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc
Wireless Networks, Classifications of Routing Protocols, Table Driven
Routing Protocols – Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV),
On–Demand Routing protocols –Ad hoc On–Demand Distance Vector
Routing (AODV).

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction

1.2 Elements of Ad hoc Wireless Networks

1.3 Issues in Ad hoc wireless networks

1.4 Commercial Applications of Ad Hoc Networking

1.5 Ad hoc wireless Internet

1.6 Routing Protocols for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

1.7 Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

1.8 Characteristics of an Ideal Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

1.9 Classifications of Routing Protocols

1.10 Table Driven Routing Protocols

On–Demand Routing protocols

1.1 Introduction

1.1.1 Computer Networks

 A computer network is the interconnection of multiple nodes through links. A node can
be computer, printer, or any other device capable of sending or receiving the data. The
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.2
links connecting the nodes are known as communication channels.

 The computer network uses distributed processing in which task is divided among several
computers. Instead, a single computer handles an entire task, each separate computer
handles a subset

Advantages of Distributed processing

 Security: It provides limited interaction that a user can have with the entire system. For
example, a bank allows the users to access their own accounts through an ATM without
allowing them to access the bank's entire database.

 Faster problem solving: Multiple computers can solve the problem faster than a single
machine working alone.

 Security through redundancy: Multiple computers running the same program at the
same time can provide the security through redundancy. For example, if four computers
run the same program and any computer has a hardware error, then other computers can
override it.

Applications of Distributed Systems

 E-mail

 Online Ticket Reservation

 Banking, etc.,

1.1.2 Types of Communication

 Communication medium refers to the physical channel through which data is sent and
received. Data is sent in the form of voltage levels which make up the digital signal. A
digital signal consists of 0s and 1s. There are basically two types of networks:

 Wired network

 Wireless network

Wired Network

 In a wired network, data is transmitted over a physical medium.

 There are three types of physical cables used in a wired network.

 Twisted Pair

 Coaxial Cable

 Fiber Optic

Examples: Cable TV, Broadband Telephone Communication.

 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.3

Wireless Network

 A wireless network uses radio waves as the sole medium for transmitting and receiving
data. There are no wires involved.

 Radio waves are electromagnetic waves which are transverse in nature and they have the
longest wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Examples: Infrared, Bluetooth, WiFi.

1.2 Elements of Ad hoc Wireless Networks

 The word “ad hoc” comes from Latin Language, which means ‘for this purpose only‘, Ad
hoc Networks are the small area networks, especially designed with Wireless/Temporary
connections to the different computer assisted nodes.
 A wireless ad-hoc network (WANET) is a type of local area network (LAN) that is built
spontaneously to enable two or more wireless devices to be connected to each other
without requiring a central device, such as a router or access point. When Wi- Fi
networks are in ad-hoc mode, each device in the network forwards data to the others.

 Since the devices in the ad-hoc network can access each other's resources directly through
a basic point-to-point wireless connection, central servers are unnecessary for functions
such as file shares or printers.

 In a wireless ad-hoc network, a collection of devices (or nodes) is responsible for network
operations, such as routing, security, addressing and key management. Figure
1.1 shows, multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks, it defined as a collection of nodes that
communicate with each other wirelessly by using radio signals with a shared common
channel.

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.4
Types of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Wireless ad hoc networks are categorized into different classes. They are:

 Mobile ad hoc network (MANET): An ad hoc network of mobile devices.

 Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET): Used for communication between vehicles.

Intelligent VANETs use artificial intelligence and ad hoc technologies to
communicate what should happen during accidents.

 Smartphone ad hoc network (SPAN): Wireless ad hoc network created on

smartphones via existing technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

 Wireless mesh network: A mesh network is an ad hoc network where the various
nodes are in communication directly with each other to relay information throughout
the total network.

 Army tactical MENT: Used in the army for "on-the-move" communication, a

wireless tactical ad hoc network relies on range and instant operation to establish
networks when needed.

 Wireless sensor network: Wireless sensors that collect everything from temperature
and pressure readings to noise and humidity levels, can form an ad hoc network to
deliver information to a home base without needing to connect directly to it.

 Disaster rescue ad hoc network: Ad hoc networks are important when disaster
strikes and established communication hardware isn't functioning properly.

Advantages of Ad Hoc Networks

 Ad-hoc networks can have more flexibility.
 It is better in mobility.
 It can be turn up and turn down in a very short time.
 More economical
 It considered as a robust network because of its non-hierarchical distributed control
and management mechanisms.
Disadvantages of Ad Hoc Networks
 Unpredictable Topology
 Limited Bandwidth
 Lose of data
 Interference
 Limited Security
 Energy Constraints
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.5
1.3 Issues in Ad hoc wireless networks
 The major issues that affect the design, deployment, and performance of an ad hoc
wireless system are as follows:
 Medium Access Control (MAC)
 Routing
 Multicasting
 Transport layer protocol
 Quality of Service (QOS)
 Self-organization
 Security
 Energy management
 Addressing and service discovery
 Scalability
 Deployment considerations
1.3.1 Medium Access Control
 The purpose of this protocol is to achieve a distributed FIFO schedule among multiple
nodes in an ad hoc network. When a node transmits a packet, it adds the information about
the arrival time of queued packets. It provide fair access to shared broadcast radio
channel. The major issues in MAC protocol are as follows:
 Distributed Operation: The MAC protocol design should be fully distributed
involving minimum control overhead, because it need to operate in environment
without centralized device.
 Synchronization: The synchronization is mandatory for TDMA-based systems for
management of transmission and reception slots.
 Hidden Terminals Problem: Hidden terminals are nodes that are hidden (or not
reachable) from the sender of a data transmission session, but are reachable to the
receiver of the session. (Figure 1.2)
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.6
Figure 1.2 Hidden Terminal Problem

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj
 Collisions at receiver node -> inefficient bandwidth utilization, reduce
throughput.
 Exposed Terminals Problem: The nodes that are in the transmission range of the
sender of an on-going session, are prevented from making a transmission. The
exposed nodes should be allowed to transmit in a controlled fashion without causing
collision to the on-going data transfer. (Figure 1.3)

Figure 1.3 Exposed Terminal Problem

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

 Throughput: The MAC protocol employed in ad hoc wireless networks should

attempt to maximize the throughput of the system. The important considerations for
throughput enhancement are

 Minimizing the occurrence of collisions.

 Maximizing channel utilization

 Minimizing control overhead.

 Access delay: The average delay that any packet experiences to get transmitted. The
MAC protocol should attempt to minimize the delay.

 Fairness: Fairness refers to the ability of the MAC protocol to provide an equal share
or weighted share of the bandwidth to all competing nodes. Fairness can be either
node-based or flow-based.

 Real-time Traffic support: In a contention-based channel access environment,

without any central coordination, with limited bandwidth, and with location-
dependent contention, supporting time- sensitive traffic such as voice, video, and
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.7
real-time data requires explicit support from the MAC protocol.

 Resource reservation: The provisioning of QoS defined by parameters such as

bandwidth, delay, and jitter requires reservation of resources such as bandwidth,
buffer space, and processing power.

 Ability to measure resource availability: In order to handle the resources such as

bandwidth efficiently and perform call admission control based on their availability,
the MAC protocol should be able to provide an estimation of resource availability
at every node. This can also be used for making congestion control decisions.

 Capability for power control: The transmission power control reduces the energy
consumption at the nodes, causes a decrease in interference at neighboring nodes, and
increases frequency reuse.

 Adaptive rate control: This refers to the variation in the data bit rate achieved over
a channel. A MAC protocol that has adaptive rate control can make use of a high data
rate when the sender and receiver are nearby & adaptively reduce the data rate as
they move away from each other.

1.3.2 Routing

 The responsibilities of a routing protocol include exchanging the route information;

finding a feasible path to a destination. The major challenges that a routing protocol faces
are as follows:

 Mobility: The Mobility of nodes results in frequent path breaks, packet collisions,
transient loops, stale routing information, and difficulty in resource reservation.

 Bandwidth constraint: Since the channel is shared by all nodes in the broadcast
region, the bandwidth available per wireless link depends on the number of nodes &
traffic they handle.

 Error-prone and shared channel: The Bit Error Rate (BER) in a wireless channel
is very high [10-5 to 10 -3] compared to that in its wired counterparts [10-12 to 10-9].

 Location-dependent contention: The load on the wireless channel varies with the
number of nodes present in a given geographical region. This makes the contention
for the channel high when the number of nodes increases. The high contention for the
channel results in a high number of collisions & a subsequent wastage of bandwidth.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.8

 Other resource constraints: The constraints on resources such as computing power,

battery power, and buffer storage also limit the capability of a routing protocol.

The major requirements of a routing protocol in ad hoc wireless networks are the
following.

 Minimum route acquisition delay

 Quick route reconfiguration

 Loop-free routing

 Distributed routing approach

 Minimum control overhead

 Scalability

 Provisioning of QoS

 Support for time-sensitive traffic

 Security and privacy

1.3.3 Multicasting

 It plays important role in emergency search & rescue operations & in military
communication. Use of single link connectivity among the nodes in a multicast group
results in a tree-shaped multicast routing topology. Such a tree-shaped topology provides
high multicast efficiency, with low packet delivery ratio due to the frequency tree breaks.
The major issues in designing multicast routing protocols are as follows:

 Robustness: The multicast routing protocol must be able to recover & reconfigure
quickly from potential mobility-induced link breaks thus making it suitable for use in
high dynamic environments.

 Efficiency: A multicast protocol should make a minimum number of transmissions

to deliver a data packet to all the group members.

 Control overhead: The scarce bandwidth availability in ad hoc wireless networks

demands minimal control overhead for the multicast session.

 Quality of Service: QoS support is essential in multicast routing because, in most

cases, the data transferred in a multicast session is time-sensitive.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.9

 Efficient group management: Group management refers to the process of

accepting multicast session members and maintaining the connectivity among them
until the session expires.

 Scalability: The multicast routing protocol should be able to scale for a network with
a large number of node

 Security: Authentication of session members and prevention of non-members from

gaining unauthorized information play a major role in military communications.

1.3.4 Transport Layer Protocol

 The main objectives of the transport layer protocols include :

 Setting up & maintaining end-to-end connections,

 Reliable end-to-end delivery of packets,

 Flow control &

 Congestion control.

Examples of some transport layers protocols are,

a) UDP ( User Datagram Protocol ) :

 It is an unreliable connectionless transport layer protocol.

 It neither performs flow control & congestion control.

 It do not take into account the current network status such as congestion at the
intermediate links, the rate of collision, or other similar factors affecting the
network throughput.

b) TCP (Transmission Control Protocol):

 It is a reliable connection-oriented transport layer protocol.

 It performs flow control & congestion control.

 Here performance degradation arises due to frequent path breaks, presence of

stale routing information, high channel error rate, and frequent network
partitions.

1.3.5 Quality of Service (QoS)

 QoS is the performance level of services offered by a service provider or a network to
the user.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.10

 QoS provisioning often requires,

 Negotiation between host & the network.

 Resource reservation schemes.

 Priority scheduling &

 Call admission control.

 QoS parameters

 QoS-aware routing

 Finding the path is the first step toward a QoS-aware routing protocol.

 The parameters that can be considered for routing decisions are,

 Network throughput.

 Packet delivery ratio.

 Reliability.

 Delay.

 Delay jitter.

 Packet loss rate.

 Bit error rate.

1.3.6 Self-Organization
 One very important property that an ad hoc wireless network should exhibit is
organizing & maintaining the network by itself.
 The major activities that an ad hoc wireless network is required to perform for self-
organization are,
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.11

 Neighbour discovery.

 Topology organization &

 Topology reorganization (updating topology information)

1.3.7 Security
 Security is an important issue in ad hoc wireless network as the information can be
hacked.

 Attacks against network are two types

 Passive attack → Made by malicious node to obtain information transacted in the

network without disrupting the operation.

 Active attack → They disrupt the operation of network.

 Further active attacks are two types

 External attack: The active attacks that are executed by nodes outside the network.

 Internal attack: The active attacks that are performed by nodes belonging to the same
network.

 The major security threats that exist in ad hoc wireless networks are as follows :

 Denial of service – The attack affected by making the network resource unavailable
for service to other nodes, either by consuming the bandwidth or by overloading the
system.

 Resource consumption – The scarce availability of resources in ad hoc wireless

network makes it an easy target for internal attacks, particularly aiming at consuming
resources available in the network. The major types of resource consumption attacks
are,

 Energy depletion

 Highly constrained by the energy source

 Aimed at depleting the battery power of critical nodes.

 Buffer overflow

 Carried out either by filling the routing table with unwanted routing entries
or by consuming the data packet buffer space with unwanted data.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.12

 Lead to a large number of data packets being dropped, leading to the loss of
critical information.

 Host impersonation – A compromised internal node can act as another node and
respond with appropriate control packets to create wrong route entries, and can
terminate the traffic meant for the intended destination node.

 Information disclosure – A compromised node can act as an informer by deliberate

disclosure of confidential information to unauthorized nodes.

 Interference – A common attack in defense applications to jam the wireless

communication by creating a wide spectrum noise.
1.3.8 Addressing and Service Discovery
 Addressing & service discovery assume significance in ad hoc wireless network due
to the absence of any centralised coordinator.
 An address that is globally unique in the connected part of the ad hoc wireless
network is required for a node in order to participate in communication.
 Auto-configuration of addresses is required to allocate non-duplicate addresses to the
nodes.
1.3.9 Energy Management
 Energy management is defined as the process of managing the sources & consumers
of energy in a node or in the network for enhancing the lifetime of a network.
 Features of energy management are:

 Shaping the energy discharge pattern of a node’s battery to enhance battery life.

 Finding routes that consumes minimum energy.

 Using distributed scheduling schemes to improve battery life.

 Handling the processor & interface devices to minimize power consumption.

 Energy management can be classified into the following categories:

 Transmission power management

 The power consumed by the Radio Frequency (RF) module of a mobile node
is determined by several factors such as
 The state of operation.
 The transmission power and
 The technology used for the RF circuitry.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.13

 Battery energy management

 The battery management is aimed at extending the battery life of a node by taking
advantage of its chemical properties, discharge patterns, and by the selection of
a battery from a set of batteries that is available for redundancy.

 Processor power management

 The clock speed and the number of instructions executed per unit time are some
of the processor parameters that affect power consumption.

 The CPU can be put into different power saving modes during low processing
load conditions.

 The CPU power can be completely turned off if the machines is idle for a long
time.

 Devices power management

 Intelligent device management can reduce power consumption of a mobile node

significantly.

 This can be done by the operating system (OS) by selectively powering down
interface devices that are not used or by putting devices into different power
saving modes, depending on their usage.

1.3.10 Scalability

 Scalability is the ability of the routing protocol to scale well in a network with a large
number of nodes.

 It requires minimization of control overhead & adaptation of the routing protocol to

the network size.

1.3.11 Deployment Considerations

 The deployment of a commercial ad hoc wireless network has the following benefits
when compared to wired networks

 Low cost of deployment

 The use of multi-hop wireless relaying eliminates the requirement of cables &
maintenance in deployment of communication infrastructure.

 The cost involved is much lower than that of wired networks.

 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.14

 Incremental deployment

 Deployment can be performed incrementally over geographical regions of the

city.

 The deployed part of the network starts functioning immediately after the
minimum configuration is done.

 Short deployment time

 Compared to wired networks, the deployment time is considerably less due to

the absence of any wired links.

 Reconfigurability

 The cost involved in reconfiguring a wired network covering a Metropolitan

Area Network (MAN) is very high compared to that of an ad hoc wireless
network covering the same service area.

1.4 Commercial Applications of Ad Hoc Networking

 Ad Hoc wireless networks, due to their quick and economically less demanding
deployment, find applications in several areas. Some important applications are:

 Military Applications

 Collaborative and Distributed computing

 Energy Operations

 Wireless Mesh Networks

 Wireless Sensor Networks

 Hybrid Wireless Networks

1.4.1 Military Applications

 Ad hoc wireless networks can be very useful in establishing communication among a

group of soldiers for tactical operations.

 Setting up of a fixed infrastructure for communication among group of soldiers in

enemy territories or in inhospitable terrains may not be possible.

 In such a case, adhoc wireless networks provide required communication mechanism

quickly.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.15

 The primary nature of the communication required in a military environment enforces

certain important requirements on adhoc wireless networks namely, Reliability,
Efficiency, Secure communication & Support for multicast routing.

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

1.4.2 Collaborative & Distributed computing

 Adhoc wireless network helps in collaborative computing, by establishing temporary

communication infrastructure for quick communication with minimal configuration
among a group of people in a conference.

 In distributed file sharing application reliability is of high importance which would be

provided by adhoc network.

 Other applications such as streaming of multimedia objects among participating nodes in

ad hoc wireless networks require support for soft real-time communication

 Devices used for such applications could typically be laptops with add -on wireless
interface cards, enhanced personal digital assistants (PDAs) or mobile devices with high
processing power

1.4.3 Emergency Operations

 Ad hoc wireless networks are very useful in emergency operations such as search and
rescue, crowd control and commando operations.
 The major factors that favour ad hoc wireless networks for such tasks are self-
configuration of the system with minimal overhead, independent of fixed or centralised
infrastructure, the freedom and flexibility of mobility, and unavailability of
conventional communication infrastructure.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.16

 In environments, where the conventional infrastructure based communication facilities

are destroyed due to a war or due to natural calamities, immediate deployment of adhoc
wireless networks would be a good solution for co-ordinating rescue activities.
 They require minimum initial network configuration with very little or no delay
1.4.4 Wireless Mesh Network
 Wireless mesh networks are adhoc wireless network that are formed to provide an
alternate communication infrastructure for mobile or fixed nodes/users, without the
spectrum reuse constraint & requirement of network planning of cellular network.(Figure
1.4)

Figure 1.4 Wireless Mesh Netowrks

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

 It provides many alternate paths for a data transfer session between a source & destination,
resulting in quick reconfiguration of the path when the existing path fails due to node
failure.

 Since the infrastructure built is in the form of small radio relaying devices, the investment
required in wireless mesh networks is much less than what is required for the cellular
network counterpart.

 The possible deployment scenarios of wireless mesh networks include: residential zones,
highways, business zones, important civilian regions and university campuses

 Wireless mesh networks should be capable of self-organization and maintenance.

 It operates at license-free ISM band around 2.4 GHz & 5 GHz.

 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.17

 It is scaled well to provide support to large number of points.

 Major advantage is the support for a high data rate, quick & low cost of deployment,
enhanced services, high scalability, easy extendibility, high availability & low cost per
bit.

1.4.5 Wireless Sensor Networks

 The Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are special category of Adhoc wireless network
that are used to provide a wireless communication infrastructure among the sensors
deployed in a specific application domain.(Figure 1.5)

 Sensor nodes are tiny devices that have capability of sensing physical parameters
processing the data gathered, & communication to the monitoring system.

Figure 1.5 Wireless Sensor Networks

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

 The issue that make sensor network a distinct category of adhoc wireless network are the
following:

Mobility of nodes

 Mobility of nodes is not a mandatory requirement in sensor networks.

 For example, the nodes used for periodic monitoring of soil properties are not
required to be mobile & the nodes that are fitted on the bodies of patients in a post-
surgery ward of a hospital are designed to support limited or partial mobility.

 In general, sensor networks need not in all cases be designed to support mobility of
sensor nodes.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.18

Size of the network

 The number of nodes in sensor network can be much larger than that in a typical ad
hoc wireless network.

Density of deployment

 The density of nodes in a sensor network varies with the domain of application.

 For example, Military applications require high availability of the network, making
redundancy a high priority.

Power constraints

 The power constraints in sensor networks are much more stringent than those in ad
hoc wireless networks. This is mainly because the sensor nodes are expected to
operate in harsh environmental or geographical conditions, with minimum or no
human supervision and maintenance.

 In certain case, the recharging of the energy source is impossible.

 Running such a network, with nodes powered by a battery source with limited energy,
demands very efficient protocol at network, data link, and physical layer.

 The power sources used in sensor networks can be classified into the following 3
categories:

 Replenishable Power source: The power source can be replaced when the
existing source is fully drained.

 Non-replenishable Power source: The power source cannot be replenished once

the network has been deployed. The replacement of sensor node is the only
solution.

 Regenerative Power source: Here, Power source employed in sensor network

have the capability of regenerating power from the physical parameter under
measurement.

Data / Information fusion

 Data fusion refers to the aggregation of multiple packets into one before relaying it.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.19

 Data fusion mainly aims at reducing the bandwidth consumed by redundant headers
of the packets and reducing the media access delay involved in transmitting multiple
packets.

 Information fusion aims at processing the sensed data at the intermediate nodes and
relaying the outcome to the monitor node.

Traffic Distribution

 The communication traffic pattern varies with the domain of application in sensor
networks.

 For example, the environmental sensing application generates short periodic packets
indicating the status of the environmental parameter under observation to a central
monitoring station.

 This kind of traffic requires low bandwidth.

 Ad hoc wireless networks generally carry user traffic such as digitized & packetized voice
stream or data traffic, which demands higher bandwidth.

1.4.6 Hybrid Wireless Networks

 One of the major application area of ad hoc wireless network is in the hybrid wireless
architecture such as Multi-hop Cellular Network [MCN] & Integrated Cellular Adhoc
Relay [iCAR].

 The primary concept behind cellular networks is geographical channel reuse.

 Several techniques like cell sectoring, cell resizing and multi-tier cells increase the
capacity of cellular networks.

 MCNs combine the reliability & support of fixed base station of cellular network with
flexibility & multi - hop relaying adhoc wireless networks.

 Major advantages are:

 Higher capacity than cellular networks due to the better channel reuse.

 Increased flexibility & reliability in routing.

 Better coverage & connectivity in holes of a cell can be provided by means of

multiple hops through intermediate nodes in a cell.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.20

1.5 Ad hoc wireless Internet

 Ad hoc wireless internet extends the services of the internet to the end users over an
ad hoc wireless network. It shows in figure 1.6.

 Some of the applications of ad hoc wireless internet are :

 Wireless mesh network.

 Provisioning of temporary internet services to major conference venues.

 Sports venues.

 Temporary military settlements.

 Battlefields

 Broadband internet services in rural regions.

 The major issues to be considered for a successful ad hoc wireless internet are the
following :

 Gateway
 They are the entry points to the wired internet.

 Generally owned & operated by a service provider.

 They perform following tasks ,

 Keeping track of end users.

 Bandwidth management.

 Load balancing.

 Traffic shaping.

 Packet filtering.

 Width fairness &

 Address, service & location discovery.

 Address mobility
 This problem is worse here as the nodes operate over multiple wireless hops.

 Solution such as Mobile IP can provide temporary alternative.

 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.21

Figure 1. 6 Ad Hoc Wireless Internet

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C.
 Siva Ram Murthy and B. S. Manoj


 Routing

 It is a major problem in ad hoc wireless internet, due to dynamic topological

changes, the presence of gateways, multi-hop relaying, & the hybrid character
of the network.

 Possible solution is to use separate routing protocol for the wireless part of ad
hoc wireless internet.

 Transport layer protocol

 Several factors are to be considered here, the major one being the state
maintenance overhead at the gateway nodes.

 Load balancing
 They are essential to distribute the load so as to avoid the situation where the
gateway nodes become bottleneck nodes.
 Pricing / Billing
 Since internet bandwidth is expensive, it becomes very important to
introduce pricing/billing strategies for the ad hoc wireless internet.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.22

 Provisioning of security

 Security is a prime concern since the end users can utilize the ad hoc wireless
internet infrastructure to make e-commerce transaction.

 QoS support

 With the widespread use of Voice Over IP (VOIP) & growing multimedia
applications over the internet, provisioning of QoS support in the ad hoc wireless
internet becomes a very important issue.

 Service, address & location discovery

 Service discovery refers to the activity of discovering or identifying the party

which provides service or resource.

 Address discovery refers to the services such as those provided by Address

Resolution Protocol (ARP) or Domain Name Service (DNS) operating within
the wireless domain.

 Location discovery refers to different activities such as detecting the location of

a particular mobile node in the network or detecting the geographical location of
nodes.

1.6 Routing Protocols for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

 Routing is the exchange of information from one station of networks to other and Protocol
is the set of standard or rules to exchange data between two devices.

 An ad hoc routing protocol is a convention, or standard, that controls how nodes decide
which way to route packets between computing devices in a mobile ad hoc network.

 An ad hoc wireless network consists of a set of mobile nodes (hosts) that are connected
by wireless links. The network topology (the physical connectivity of the communication
network) in such a network may keep changing randomly.

 Routing protocols that find a path to be followed by data packets from a source node to
a destination node used in traditional wired networks cannot be directly applied in ad
hoc wireless networks due to their highly dynamic topology absence of established
infrastructure for centralized administration (e.g., base stations or access points),
bandwidth-constrained wireless links, and resource (energy)-constrained nodes.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.23

1.7 Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

 The major challenges that a routing protocol designed for ad hoc wireless networks faces
are:

 Mobility of nodes
 Bandwidth Constraints
 Error-Prone channel state
 Hidden Terminal Problem
 Exposed Terminal Problems
 Resource Constraints

1.7.1 Mobility

 Network topology is highly dynamic due to movement of nodes. Hence, an ongoing

session suffers frequent path breaks.

 Disruption occurs due to the movement of either intermediate nodes in the path or end
nodes.

 Wired network routing protocols cannot be used in adhoc wireless networks because the
nodes are here are not stationary and the convergence is very slow in wired networks.

 Mobility of nodes results in frequently changing network topologies

 Routing protocols for ad hoc wireless networks must be able to perform efficient and
effective mobility management.

1.7.2 Bandwidth Constraint

 Abundant bandwidth is available in wired networks due to the advent of fiber optics and
due to the exploitation of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technologies.

 In a wireless network, the radio band is limited, and hence the data rates it can offer are
much less than what a wired network can offer.

 This requires that the routing protocols use the bandwidth optimally by keeping the
overhead as low as possible.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.24

 The limited bandwidth availability also imposes a constraint on routing protocols in

maintaining the topological information.

1.7.3 Error-prone shared broadcast radio channel

 The broadcast nature of the radio channel poses a unique challenge in ad hoc wireless
networks.

 The wireless links have time-varying characteristics in terms of link capacity and link-
error probability.

 This requires that the adhoc wireless network routing protocol interact with the MAC
layer to find alternate routes through better-quality links.

 Transmissions in ad hoc wireless networks result in collisions of data and control packets.

 Therefore, it is required that ad hoc wireless network routing protocols find paths with
less congestion.

1.7.4 Hidden Terminal Problem

 The hidden terminal problem refers to the collision of packets at a receiving node due to
the simultaneous transmission of those nodes that are not within the direct transmission
range of the receiver, but are within the transmission range of the receiver.

 Collision occurs when both nodes transmit packets at the same time without knowing
about the transmission of each other.

Figure 1. 7 Hidden Terminal Problem

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.25

 For example, consider figure 1.7. Here, if both node A and node C transmit to node B at
the same time, their packets collide at node B. This is due to the fact that both node A
and C are hidden from each other, as they are not within the direct transmission range of
each other and hence do not know about the presence of each other.
 Solution for this problem (figure 1.8), include medium access collision avoidance
(MACA)

Figure 1.8 Solution for Hidden Terminal Problem

 Transmitting node first explicitly notifies all potential hidden nodes about the forthcoming
transmission by means of a two way handshake control protocol called RTS-CTS protocol
exchange. This may not solve the problem completely but it reduces the probability of
collisions.
1.7.5 Exposed Terminal Problem
 The exposed terminal problem refers to the inability of a node which is blocked due to
transmission by a nearby transmitting node to transmit to another node.
 For example, consider the figure 1.9, Here, if a transmission from node B to another node
A is already in progress, node C cannot transmit to node D, as it concludes that its
neighbor node B, is in transmitting mode and hence should not interfere with the on-going
transmission. Thus, reusability of the radio spectrum is affected.

Figure 1. 9 Exposed Terminal Problem

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.26

 Solution for this problem, illustrated in figure 1.10. In this case, node A did not
successfully receive the CTS originated by node R and hence assumes that there is no on-
going transmission in the neighborhood. Since node A is hidden from node T, any attempt
to originate its own RTS would result in collision of the on-going transmission between
nodes T and R.

Figure 1. 10 Solution for Exposed Terminal Problem

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

1.7.6 Resource Constraints

 Two essential and limited resources are battery life and processing power.
 Devices used in adhoc wireless networks require portability, and hence they also have
size and weight constraints along with the restrictions on the power source.
 Increasing the battery power and processing ability makes the nodes bulky and less
portable.
1.8 Characteristics of an Ideal Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless
Networks
 A routing protocol for ad hoc wireless networks should have the following
characteristics:
 It must be fully distributed as centralized routing involves high control overhead
and hence is not scalable.
 It must be adaptive to frequent topology changes caused by the mobility of nodes.
 Route computation and maintenance must involve a minimum number of nodes. Each
node in the network must have quick access to routes, that is, minimum connection
setup time is desired.
 It must be localized, as global state maintenance involves a huge state propagation
control overhead.
 It must be loop-free and free from state routes.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.27

 The number of packet collisions must be kept to a minimum by limiting the number
of broadcasts made by each node. The transmissions should be reliable to reduce
message loss and to prevent the occurrence of state routes.
 It must converge to optimal routes once the network topology becomes stable. The
convergence must be quick.
 It must optimally use scarce resources such as bandwidth, computing power,
memory, and battery power.
 Every node in the network should try to store information regarding the stable local
topology only. Changes in remote parts of the network must not cause updates in the
topology information maintained by the node.
 It should be able to provide a certain level of quality of service (QoS) as demanded
by the applications, and should also offer support for time-sensitive traffic.
1.9 Classifications of Routing Protocols
 Routing protocols for ad hoc wireless networks can be classified into several types based
on different criteria. A classification tree is shown in Figure 1.11.
 The routing protocol for adhoc wireless networks can be broadly classified into 4
categories based on
 Routing information update mechanism.
 Use of temporal information for routing
 Routing topology
 Utilization of specific resources.
1.9.1 Based on the routing information update mechanism
 Ad hoc wireless network routing protocols can be classified into 3 major categories
based on the routing information update mechanism. They are:
 Proactive or table-driven routing protocols
 Every node maintains the network topology information in the form of
routing tables by periodically exchanging routing information.
 Routing information is generally flooded in the whole network.
 Whenever a node requires a path to a destination, it runs an appropriate path-
finding algorithm on the topology information it maintains.
 Reactive or on-demand routing protocols
 Do not maintain the network topology information.
 Obtain the necessary path when it is required, by using a connection
establishment process.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.28

Figure 1.11 Classification of Sensor Network Protocols

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

 Hybrid routing protocols

 Combine the best features of the above two categories.

 Nodes within a certain distance from the node concerned, or within a

particular geographical region, are said to be within the routing zone of the
given node.

 For routing within this zone, a table-driven approach is used.

 For nodes that are located beyond this zone, an on-demand approach is used.

1.9.2 Based on the use of temporal information for routing

 The protocols that fall under this category can be further classified into two types

 Routing protocols using past temporal information

 Use information about the past status of the links or the status of links at the
time of routing to make routing decisions.

 Routing protocols that use future temporal information

 Use information about the about the expected future status of the wireless
links to make approximate routing decisions.

 Apart from the lifetime of wireless links, the future status information also
includes information regarding the lifetime of the node, prediction of location,
and prediction of link availability.

1.9.3 Based on the Routing Topology

 Ad hoc wireless networks, due to their relatively smaller number of nodes, can make
use of either a flat topology or a hierarchical topology for routing.

 Flat topology routing protocols

 Make use of a flat addressing scheme similar to the one used in IEEE 802.3
LANs.

 It assumes the presence of a globally unique addressing mechanism for nodes

in an ad hoc wireless network.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.30

 Hierarchical topology routing protocols

 Make use of a logical hierarchy in the network and an associated addressing

scheme.

 The hierarchy could be based on geographical information or it could be

based on hop distance.

1.9.4 Based on the utilization of specific resources

 Power-aware routing

 Aims at minimizing the consumption of a very important resource in the ad hoc

wireless networks: the battery power.

 The routing decisions are based on minimizing the power consumption either
logically or globally in the network.

 Geographical information assisted routing

 Improves the performance of routing and reduces the control overhead by

effectively utilizing the geographical information available.

1.10 Table Driven Routing Protocols

 These protocols are extensions of the wired network routing protocols.

 They maintain the global topology information in the form of tables at every node.

 Tables are updated frequently in order to maintain consistent and accurate network
state information.

 Example:

 Destination Sequenced Distance Vector Routing Protocol (DSDV)

 Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP)

 Source-Tree Adaptive Routing Protocol (STAR)

 Cluster-head Gateway Switch Routing Protocol (CGSR)

 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.31

1.10.1 Destination Sequenced Distance Vector Routing Protocol (DSDV)

 Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV) is a hop-by-hop vector routing

protocol requiring each node to periodically broadcast routing updates. Destination
Sequenced Distance Vector Routing protocol is a modified version of Bellman Ford
Algorithm and is based upon the concepts of Distance Vector Routing.

 In Distance Vector Routing (DVR), each node broadcasts a table containing its
distance from nodes which are directly connected and based upon this, other nodes
broadcasts the updated routing. Those nodes which are unreachable directly are
labelled as “infinite”.

 But, this updation of routing tables keeps on happening and an infinite loop is
generated which is commonly known as Count-To-Infinity problem.

 To overcome this problem of count to infinity by generating sequence number in the

routing table, every time the routing table is updated. The process of DSDV is same as
that of Distance Vector Routing but an extra attribute of sequence number is added.

Destination Sequenced Distance Vector Routing: Concept

 DSDV protocol uses and maintains a single table only, for every node individually.
The table contains the following attributes.

o Routing Table: It contains the distance of a node from all the neighbouring nodes
along with the sequence number (SEQ No means the time at which table is
updated).

Node Destination Next Hop Distance SEQ No

Table: 1.1 DSDV Table Format

 This table is updated on every step and ensures that each node broadcast as well as
receives correct information about all the nodes including their distance and sequence
number.

Destination Sequenced Distance Vector Routing Protocol: Working

 In DSDV, nodes broadcasts their routing tables to immediate neighbors with the
sequence number. Every time any broadcasting occurs, the sequence number is
also updated along with distances of nodes.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.32

 Consider a network (Figure 1.12) of 3 nodes having distances of “1” on each of

the edges respectively. Below mentioned steps will let you know how DSDV
works and routing tables are updated.

Figure 1.12 Sample Network of DSDV

Step-1: Draw separate tables for all the nodes “X”, “Y” & “ Z” along with the distance
and sequence number.

For X:

Source Destination Next Hop Cost SEQ No

X X X 0 100-X

X Y Y 1 200-Y

X Z Y 2 300-Z

For Y:

Source Destination Next Hop Cost SEQ No

Y X X 1 100-X

Y Y Y 0 200-Y

Y Z Y 1 300-Z
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.33

For Z:

Source Destination Next Hop Cost SEQ No

Z X Y 2 100-X

Z Y Y 1 200-Y

Z Z Z 0 300-Z

 If “Y” wants to broadcast the routing table. Then updated routing tables of all the
nodes in the network will look like as depicted in the below tables where Bold marked
cell denotes the change in sequence number.

For X:

Source Destination Next Hop Cost SEQ No

X X X 0 100-X

X Y Y 1 210-Y

X Z Y 2 300-Z

For Y:

Source Destination Next Hop Cost SEQ No

Y X X 1 100-X

Y Y Y 0 210-Y

Y Z Z 1 300-Z
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.34

For Z:

Source Destination Next Hop Cost SEQ No

Z X Y 2 100-X

Z Y Y 1 210-Y

Z Z Z 0 300-Z

Advantages

 Less delay involved in the route setup process.

 Mechanism of incremental update with sequence number tags makes the existing
wired network protocols adaptable to ad hoc wireless networks.

 The updates are propagated throughout the network in order to maintain an up-to-
date view of the network topology at all nodes.

Disadvantages

 The updates due to broken links lead to a heavy control overhead during high
mobility.

 Even a small network with high mobility or a large network with low mobility can
completely choke the available bandwidth.

 Suffers from excessive control overhead.

 In order to obtain information about a particular destination node, a node has to

wait for a table update message initiated by the same destination node.

1.11 On–Demand Routing protocols

 In table-driven protocols, each node maintain up-to-date routing information to all the
nodes in the network where in on-demand protocols a node finds the route to a
destination when it desires to send packets to the destination.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.35

1.11.1 Ad hoc On–Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV)

 This protocol is an example of reactive routing protocol which does not maintain
routes but build the routes as per requirements. That means, Route is established only
when it is required by a source node for transmitting data packets.

 AODV is used to overcome the drawbacks of Dynamic Source Routing Protocol and
Distance Vector Routing Protocol i.e. Dynamic Source Routing is capable of
maintaining information of the routes between source and destination which makes it
slow. If the network is very large containing a number of routes from source to
destination, it is difficult for the data packets header to hold whole information of the
routes.

 In case of Dynamic Source Routing, multiple routes are present for sending a packet
from source to destination but AODV overcomes this disadvantage too.

 In AODV, along with routing tables of every node, two counters including Sequence
Number (SEQ NO) and broadcast ID are maintained also.

 The destination IP is already known to which data is to be transferred from source.

Thus, the destination Sequence Number (SEQ NO) helps to determine an updated path
from source to destination.

 Along with these counters, Route Request (RREQ) and Route Response (RRESP)
packets are used in which RREQ is responsible for discovering of route from source to
destination and RRESP sends back the route information response to its source.

Ad-Hoc On - Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol: Working

 In Ad-Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing, the source node and destination
nodes IP addresses are already known.

 The goal is to identify, discover and maintain the optimal route between source and
destination node in order to send/receive data packets and informative.

 Each node comprises of a routing table along with below mentioned format of Route
Request (RREQ) packet.

 RREQ {Destination IP, Destination Sequence Number, Source IP, Source Sequence
Number, Hop Count}.
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.36

 Consider a network (Figure 1.13) containing 5 nodes that are “X”, “Y”, “Z”,”T”,”D”
present at unit distance from each other, where “X” being the source node and “D”
being the destination node.

Figure 1.13 Sample Network of AODV

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy
and B. S. Manoj

 The IP addresses of source node “X” and destination node “D” is already known.
Below mentioned steps will let you know how AODV works and concept of Route
Request (REREQ) and Route Response (RRESP) is used.(Figure 1.14)

 Step 1: Source node “X” will send Route Request i.e. RREQ packet to its
neighbours “Y” and “Z”.

 Step 2: Node “Y” & “Z” will check for route and will respond using RRESP
packet back to source “X”. Here in this case “Z” is the last node but the
destination. It will send the RREQ packet to “X” stating “Route Not Found”. But
node “Y” will send RRESP packet stating “Route Found” and it will further
broadcast the RRESP to node “T”.

 Step 3: Now the field of net hop in the RREQ format will be updated, Node “T”
will send back the “Route Found” message to Node “Y” and will update the next
hop field further.

 Step 4: Then Node “T” will broadcast and RREQ packet to Node “D”, which is
the destination and the next hop field is further updated. Then it will send RRES
packet to “T” which will further be sent back to the source node “X” via node “Y”
and Node “T” resulting in generation of an optimal path. The updated network
would be:
 AD HOC and Wireless Sensor Networks 1.37

Figure 1.14 Example of AODV Network

Source : Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocol by C. Siva Ram Murthy and
B. S. Manoj

Advantages

 Dynamic networks can be handled easily.

 No loop generation.

Disadvantages

 A delayed protocol because of its route discovery process.

 High bandwidth requirement.