A self-correcting neighbor protocol for mobile ad-hoc wireless networks

Abstract

Mobile wireless ad-hoc networks lack some basic abilities taken for granted in wired networks, such as the ability to know adjacent nodes. We present a neighbor discovery protocol, with particular application to broadcast flooding. The neighbor exchange protocol (NXP) has two main improvements over simple periodic broadcast schemes: (1) it only sends Hello packets when necessary to maintain topology and (2) uses sequence numbers in redistributed information to aid in convergence. In simulation, we compare NXP to a periodic protocol and simple flooding for all-node packet broadcasts and two dissemination techniques. We show that we maintain similar delivery rates while using fewer control packets in most configurations.