.FLYINGHEAD WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURE
.TITLE Data transportation in Internet-based mobile ad-hoc network
.AUTHOR Humayun Bakht
.SUMMARY Today’s world is one of technological revolutions. With all of these inventions, our communication structure has become strong enough to allow us to stay in contact with anyone, in any part of the world, and the mobile ad-hoc network is an integral part of that communication structure. In his continuing instructional series, Contributing Editor Humayun Bakht gives us the ins and outs of data transportation over an Internet-based mobile ad-hoc network.
.DEPT
Today’s world is one of technological revolutions. Several recent inventions in various fields have been introduced, and with time we hope to see more inventions in the future. With all of these inventions, our communication structure has become strong enough to allow us to stay in contact with anyone, in any part of the world, without requiring much effort on our behalf. The existing communication structures are mainly based on wireless networks, which were first introduced back in 1980’s.
These cellular systems, such as GSM, and those used by Motorola, have evolved into various advanced forms and are currently in use in our modern day-to-day life. Not specific to the communication sector, wireless networks are in use in many different fields, including banking, business, education, etc.
The adaptability of our current wireless structure is always an issue. Efforts have been underway for over a decade to transform current wireless communications structures into a form where they rely less on the availability of supporting structures. Based on that same idea, some of the latest inventions, such as Bluetooth and ad-hoc wireless sensors, have been introduced. These technologies allowed scientists to review an old concept of the mobile ad-hoc network.
The mobile ad-hoc network is a communication structure that can be formed by two or more mobile nodes without the intervention of any supporting infrastructure. This type of networking can be used for almost the same purpose as its counter part, i.e. fixed wireless networks, but there are still a number of issues that await suitable answers in order to fit within the communication structure of mobile ad-hoc networks. Among many of the existing issues, the issue of achieving reliable data transportation in Internet-based mobile ad-hoc network is gaining importance because of the capability to satisfy the requirements of mobile computing and various commercial mobile Internet applications, commonly known as the future networking environments.
.BREAK_EMAIL Click here to learn more about data transportation in ad-hoc networks.
Some of the distinctive features of mobile ad-hoc networks are wireless-ness and high mobility. The communication infrastructure of mobile ad hoc networks mainly depend on the wireless links, in which every mobile node functions as a router, forwarding and receiving packets for all other nodes in the network. Internet applications, such as the Web browser and file transfer, use reliable data transport services. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) supports this service.
Transport Control Protocol was designed to support data transmission in fixed wireless networks. Recent research has documented its poor performance on mobile ad-hoc network environment. This is because of TCP’s weakness in distinguishing the causes of packet loss between different types of network congestion during an active data transmission.
In other words, TCP assumes that all packet losses are caused by network congestion and invokes the congestion control and avoidance algorithms. TCP uses these mechanisms to alleviate network congestion by reducing the TCP transmission rate. Another factor is the high mobility in ad-hoc networking environments. This high mobility causes wireless links, route changes, and breakages quite frequently in mobile ad-hoc networks.
There are a number of various approaches that can be used to resolve the performance degradation issues of reliable data transport in Internet based mobile ad hoc networks. Possible solutions might include modifying and improving link layer, network layer, and transport layer protocols, and eliminating the adverse interactions among these layers. Another solution is to enhance the inter-layer control and communications of control messages.
In summary, connecting a wireless ad-hoc network with a larger network such as the Internet is of great importance. We already have different facilities that are currently in use to provide various communication services for computer users. Current Internet configuration mainly depends on Transport Control Protocol for data transportation, but TCP doesn’t currently show very good performance on mobile ad-hoc network. A good bit of work has already been done to redevelop or modify the existing structure of TCP. This work needs to be refined and be integrated into a single form in order to achieve reliable transportation of data in Internet-based mobile ad-hoc network.
.BIO
