An Innovative Design Approach to Control over Ad Hoc Networks

In Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the mobile nodes are communicating trough wireless medium. The protocol designs of MANETs are based on a traditional approach which has been found ineffective to deal congestion related problems. Hence, it is affecting properties of physical layer, the network layer and transport layer. This paper proposes a novel design approach, deviating from the traditional network design, towards enhancing the cross-layer interaction among different layers, namely physical, MAC and network. The novel approach for congestion control is to solve congestion and mobility related problems with a cross layer interaction. The significance of CLCC is that it has used two mechanisms: (i) Dynamic Transmission Power Control algorithm that predicts a link breakage if it is likely to happen, (ii) Dynamic Congestion Estimation Technique, which analyzes traffic fluctuation and categorize congestion status perfectly. The proposed protocol reduces the route breakage and network congestion, hence reduces the control overhead and latency, and increases the packet delivery ratio. Through simulation, it is shown that the proposed protocol is simple, robust and effective.