Proactive mobile wireless networks : an infrastructureless wireless network architecture for delay-sensitive applications

Infrastructureless wireless networks are an important class of wireless networks that is best suited for scenarios where there is temporary and localized telecommunication demand. Such networks consist of wireless devices that can form a network autonomously without the need for pre-deployed telecommunication infrastructures such as base-stations and access points. Over the past several decades, significant research and development efforts have been devoted to a particular type of infrastructureless wireless networks called mobile ad hoc wireless networks (MANETs). In addition to autonomous network formation, wireless devices in MANETs have routing capabilities and help one another to forward information in a multihop fashion. The applications envisioned for MANETs include communication during disaster relief, search and rescue, and small tactical unit operations where the existing telecommunication infrastructures may be destroyed or are unavailable. While significant strides have been made in all aspects of MANET networking, adoption of such technology has been limited to date despite its potential. We believe that this lack of adoption is due to a fundamental mismatch between application demands and the MANET network architecture. While the flexibility of anytime and anywhere communication offered by MANETs is appealing, these networks are not designed to provide assured service for delay-sensitive applications such as communication during a search and rescue mission or in a battlefield. In fact, MANETs may be frequently disconnected due to mobility and/or device failure. Such disconnections may persist for an unacceptable length of time, during which, there may be loss of critical time-sensitive information and degraded network performance due to mismatches to routing and transport layer protocols.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Dai, Lillian Lei, 1978-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Vincent W. S. Chan.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44409

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44409