ARCA — An adaptive routing protocol for converged ad-hoc and cellular networks

This paper proposes an adaptive routing protocol called ARCA for converged ad-hoc and cellular network (CACN). Due to the limitation of both bandwidth and transmission range in a cell, a mobile host (MH) may not be able to make a call during busy time. CACN offers a flexible traffic diversion mechanism that allows a MH to use the bandwidth in another cell to ease the congestion problem and increase the throughput in a cellular network. Based on the presentation of CACN´s physical characteristics, the paper details the design issues and operation of the adaptive routing protocol for CACN (ARCA). Detailed numerical analysis is presented in terms of both route request rejection rate and routing overhead, which, along with the simulation results, have indicated the effectiveness and efficiency of the ARCA protocol.