Ad-hoc Bridging: Implementation and Analysis of Initial Protocol Design

Overview: Routing protocols for Ad-hoc networks is one of the most focused areas of research due to rapidly increasing adoptability of wireless networks and high business potential in future. Unfortunately (but with a researcher’s perspective fortunately), we are still missing a striking routing solution or rather we should say a widely accepted (like RIP, OSPF etc.) routing solution for Ad-hoc networks.

In this research, we are focusing on designing a new routing protocol for Ad-hoc networks. But it will be different from the existing routing protocols in the very basic sense; i.e. it will be a forwarding protocol rather than being a routing protocol. We are intended to use the 802.1D Bridging concepts as building blocks for this protocol. This research includes:

• The theoretical design of the protocol
• The software implementation (module/agent of the protocol which can be used with some well known simulators like NS-2, OPNET Modeler)
• Performance analysis based on simulations
• Kernel/Hardware based implementation

Project: The basic task of the student working on this project is to support in the above discussed research. Mainly, he will be supporting in coding for the protocol modules, performing simulations and analyzing the simulation results. More precisely, the task which we are offering in this project is as under:

“Student will be provided with the detailed theoretical design/structure of the protocol. He has to code a complete module which can be used with either NS-2 or OPNET Modeler for simulation purposes. Further he will be involved in performing simulations using this module to evaluate the different performance characteristics of the protocol.”

Requirements: To accomplish this task, the student should have:

• Knowledge about routing protocols, Ad-hoc networks, Wireless networks and 802.11 MAC layer
• Understanding of the simulator on which he intends to work
• Good C/C++ programming skills