STORM: A Framework for Integrated Routing, Scheduling, and Traffic Management in Ad Hoc Networks

A cross-layer framework is introduced for the effective dissemination of real-time and elastic traffic in multihop wireless networks called Scheduling and Traffic Management in Ordered Routing Meshes (STORM). Unicast and multicast routes are established in coordination with the scheduling of transmissions and bandwidth reservations in a way that bandwidth and delay guarantees can be enforced on a per-hop and end-to-end basis. The routes established in STORM are shown to be loop-free and real-time packets forwarded along these routes are shown to have bounded end-to-end delays. Results from detailed simulation experiments show that, compared to a protocol stack consisting of 802.11 DCF for channel access, AODV or OLSR for unicast routing, and ODMRP for multicast routing, STORM attains similar or better performance for elastic traffic, and up to two orders of magnitude improvement in end-to-end delays, with twice the amount of data delivery for real-time traffic while inducing considerably less communication overhead.