Distributed passive routing decisions in mobile ad-hoc networks

Communication between nodes in mobile ad-hoc networks is a daunting challenge. The dynamic nature of the environment results in a rapidly changing network topology. This paper presents a cross-layer optimization approach and proposes a routing protocol for achieving minimal delay for energy efficient communication in a dynamic multi-hop ad-hoc environment. The proposed protocol is based on minimizing signaling overhead through state-less step-wise routing decisions made at the receiver instead of the sender. This allows the routing decision to be made with respect to locally available information, which ensures that the information is up to date. The protocol is a receiver contention scheme. The contention is based upon a time-to-respond value which is calculated locally at each node through a "delay function". The performance of two delay functions is investigated in detail, which gives an important insight into the effect of physical parameters on the proposed protocol.