On Channel-Adaptive Routing in an IEEE 802.11b Based Ad Hoc Wireless Network

Abstract

Ad hoc routing is important for mobile devices, when they are out of each other's transmission range, to communicate in an IEEE 802.11b based wireless LAN using the distributed coordination function. While traditional table-based or on-demand routing protocols can be used, it is much more efficient to use a routing protocol that is channel-adaptive - judiciously selecting links that can transmit at higher data rates to form a route. However, devising channel-adaptive routing protocols is still largely unexplored. In this paper, we propose a reactive ad hoc routing algorithm, called RICA (receiver-initiated channel-adaptive) protocol, to intelligently utilize the multi-rate services (based on different modulation schemes) provided by the IEEE 802.11b standard. Our NS-2 simulation results show that the RICA protocol is highly effective.