SLALoM: a scalable location management scheme for large mobile ad-hoc networks

In a mobile wireless ad-hoc network, nodes move about and relay packets destined for other nodes. One of the biggest challenges in this area is the design of scalable routing protocols. A family of routing protocols has emerged that is potentially more scalable than the protocols that discover and/or maintain end-to-end routes. These protocols are location-based-the network maintains nodes´ approximate geographic locations and use the information to route packets. An important component of these protocols is the management of the location information at network nodes. We present one such scheme called SLALoM which scales well in large, mobile ad-hoc networks. In particular, we prove that under a specific environment the overhead cost of SLALoM is asymptotically lower than SLURP, the only other location management scheme that has been analyzed theoretically. We also provide simulation results that show our scheme performs well in comparison to SLURP under a variety of scenarios not incorporated into the analysis.