Title :
The utility of explicit rate-based flow control in mobile ad hoc networks
Author :
Chen, Kai ; Nahrstedt, Klara ; Vaidya, Nitin
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Comput. Sci., Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL, USA
Abstract :
Flow control in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) must face many new challenges such as frequent rerouting and bandwidth variation of the wireless links. TCP´s implicit AIMD flow control performs poorly in this environment, because it often cannot keep up with the dynamics of the network. This paper explores the potential utility of explicit flow control in the MANET domain. To this end, we propose an end-to-end rate-based flow control scheme (called EXACT), where a flow´s allowed rate is explicitly conveyed from intermediate routers to the end-hosts in each data packet´s special control header. As a result, EXACT reacts quickly and precisely to re-routing and bandwidth variation, which makes it especially suitable for a dynamic MANET network and also discusses several supporting mechanisms required for such a scheme at the MAC and the transport layers. By ns-2 simulations, we show that EXACT outperforms TCP in terms of fairness and efficiency, especially in a highly dynamic MANET environment.
Keywords :
ad hoc networks; mobile radio; radio links; telecommunication congestion control; telecommunication network reliability; telecommunication network routing; transport protocols; AIMD flow control; EXACT; MANET; TCP; bandwidth variation; end-to-end rate-based flow control scheme; explicit rate-based flow control; frequent rerouting; mobile ad hoc network; wireless link; Bandwidth; Communication system control; Computer science; Feedback; Intelligent networks; Internet; Mobile ad hoc networks; Peer to peer computing; Spread spectrum communication; Wireless communication;
Conference_Titel :
Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, 2004. WCNC. 2004 IEEE
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8344-3
DOI :
10.1109/WCNC.2004.1311847