*Lecturer, Department of Information and Technology, Maharishi Markandeshwar Engineering College, Maharishi Markandeshwar University, Mullana, Ambala (Haryana)
**Assistant Proffesor, Department of Management and Technology, Maharishi Markandeshwar Management College, Maharishi Markandeshwar University, Mullana, Ambala (Haryana)
Online published on 26 June, 2013.
While mobile ad-hoc networking (MANET) research has received a considerable attention in recent years, the majority of them have focused on single-tier (e.g., ground) and homogeneous (e.g., same radio for every node) MANET. Few have investigated the potential implications of multi-tier and heterogeneous natures of MANET on the design and performance of MANET protocols in a systematic manner. For example, one of the stark differences between single-tier and multi-tier MANET environments is that the multi-tier MANET naturally creates “coverage asymmetry” due to the much larger coverage area by airborne nodes compared to ground nodes. Consequently, the number of “neighbors” an airborne node sees can be potentially several orders of magnitude larger than that of a ground node. Treating this airborne node same as any ground node will adversely affect the performance of medium access control (MAC) and/or routing MANET protocols. In this paper, we present a detailed multi-tier MANET architecture, associated issues, and protocols developed. We present a new approach for routing in multi-tier heterogeneous wireless mobile ad hoc networks. This protocol, namely multi-virtual backbone protocol (MVP), naturally addresses key challenges arising from multi-tier wireless networks such as the coverage asymmetry and node heterogeneity. It also supports various QoS needs by constructing and maintaining QoS-specific virtual backbone infrastructure.
Mobile ad hoc networks, Multi-tier MANET, virtual dynamic backbone, Airborne Communication Node
