Expressive Analytical Model for Routing Protocols in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Many routing protocols exist for mobile ad hoc networks. To select the most appropriate protocol, evaluation of candidate protocols must be performed with respect to a specific operating environment, which is not an easy task. However, selecting the best protocol can be a key factor in system behavior, determining whether the system successfully satisfies application requirements. Most of the relevant research in this area relies on simulation studies or empirical analysis to select a routing protocol, requiring an infeasible amount of time and resources for the approaches to be used in real-time decision making. In this paper we describe work toward analytically expressing protocol performance metrics in terms of environment-, protocol- , and application-dependent parameters. This work provides a foundation for adaptive protocol suites that will eventually enable an integrated context-aware communication paradigm.