Topology Control and Mobility Management in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (Invited Talk Abstract)

An mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), it is important to select an appropriate transmission power for each node, called topology control, to reduce energy consumption and signal interference while still maintaining network connectivity. In a topology control protocol, each node selects a few logical neighbors from its 1-hop neighbors based on its local view, constructed by exchanging periodical "Hello" messages among neighbors, and uses a small transmission range to cover those logical neighbors. Our recent study showed that the majority of topology control protocols are unable to maintain connectivity in MANETs due to node mobility. One challenging problem involved is to construct consistent local views for the selection of a correct set of logical neighbors. All existing methods that enforce consistent local views require a certain degree of global synchronization.