77. LOW-POWER EFFICIENT ROUTING IN AD HOC WIRELESS NETWORKS

Department: Computer Science & Engineering
Faculty Advisor(s): Tajana Simunic-Rosing

Primary Student
Name: Edoardo Regini
Email: edregini@ucsd.edu
Phone: 858-534-9892
Grad Year: 2009

Abstract
In large-scale ad hoc wireless networks routing is made challenging by the lack of a network infrastructure and limited energy resources. Distant nodes require multiple hops of communication before delivery data. Furthermore, multiple nodes communicating at the same time can lower the bandwidth and lengthen communication times due to contention. Lastly, this extensive use of communication drains battery very quickly threatening the lifetime of the network. We propose a novel routing and scheduling scheme for ad hoc wireless networks to address these challenges. Our solution achieves large power savings (up to 85%) while delivering data efficiently throughout the network (throughput improvements of up to 10%). Routing relies on a backbone of active nodes that dynamically changes at run time. The backbone nodes are responsible for delivering the packets to the proper locations. Those nodes that are not part of the backbone run a low-power scheduling algorithm. The scheduling algorithm switches off the wireless interface for a significant fraction of time thus achieving large energy savings. The fraction of the nodes that is part of the backbone changes over time to ensure maximum system battery lifetime. A big advantage of our solution is that requires no modifications of the existing MAC or networking layers making it an easily deployable and inexpensive solution.

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