Assuring message delivery in mobile ad hoc networks with packet erasure recovery

In addition to depending on wireless links-which are less reliable than wired ones-mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) introduce a unique set of operational characteristics that affect message delivery assurance. One such characteristic is that the mobility of nodes in a MANET causes the topology of the entire network to alter dynamically. In particular, as a change in a single link can alter the entire delivery path, we note that the persistence of a message delivery route diminishes with the growth of network size. We propose to adapt a method that was proposed by Asmuth and Blakley (1982) for data communication to take advantage of this lack of path persistence to enhance message delivery assurance in MANET. Specifically, we show that this adaptation can be used to improve the level of successful first delivery attempts, and reduce the variations in network latency for delivering successive data packets. Additionally, we show that this adaptation admits dynamic adjustments to accommodate the time varying characteristics of message delivery paths in a MANET. Finally, we show that this adaptation can also be used to provide message security protection en route.