Flow-Oriented Protocols for Scalable Wireless Networks

摘要

In theory, a multihop packet-radio network is an ideal technology to establish an "instant communication infrastructure" in areas affected by natural disasters, support communication in the battlefield, or extend the Internet to the wireless mobile environment. However, in practice, achieving multimedia communication on the move and instant information infrastructures still presents a big challenge, because of the many differences between wire-line and wireless networks, the characteristics of portable devices (e.g., power levels, size), and the dynamics of large mobile environments. Although a large body of work exists on protocols for ad hoc networks, many issues remain to be addressed before truly scalable wireless ad-hoc networking can become a reality. In this talk, I attempt to make the case that further research is required to develop, verify, and analyze "flow-oriented" protocols for scalable wireless ad-hoc networks (SWAN). This research entails allowing the nodes of a SWAN to accomplish channel access, data forwarding and control of network resources in a way that accommodates the requirements of the end-to-end flows traversing the SWAN, as well as the operational requirements of the nodes themselves, rather than simply relying on control decisions made on a packet-by-packet basis, or on the basis of the topology of the SWAN. My talk focuses primarily on issues related to channel access, routing and multicasting, and topology control. I review some recent prior work and formulate problems that need new solutions.