Hierarchical Routing in Ad-Hoc Networks

Andrzej Gerula
June 2008


Abstract. It is noticeable that new network technologies are getting more and more
popular. New ways of communicating are now available. For the networks to work
efficient and reliably they need appropriate routing protocols.
New requirement of users of mobile wireless networks is that they can
communicate between themselves even if they are not close enough to communicate
directly and there is no access point between them. Research in this topic is done by
IETF ( Internet Engineering Task Force) organization working group called MANET
(Mobile Ad Hoc Networking).
Mobile Ad Hoc Networks need reliable and efficient routing protocols and this
paper will try to present a routing algorithm which is designed especially for this type
of networks called Safari.






1. Introduction. WLANs (Wireless Local Area Networks) are becoming more and
more popular. Those networks allow movement of the user in the network working
area. Quickly rising need of mobility make those types of networks even more
desirable.
There are two types of wireless networks. First one is the fully infrastructured
network where wireless devices are connected using base stations and access points to
standard wired networks. As the mobile travels out of range of one base station and
into the range of another, a handoff occurs from the old base station to the new,
and the mobile is able to continue communication seamlessly throughout the
network. Typical applications of this type of network include office wireless local
area networks (WLANs).[2]
Second type of wireless networks is the infrastructureless networks. They are
commonly known as the ad hoc networks (lat. for this). Infrastructureless networks
have no fixed routers; all nodes are capable of movement and can be connected
dynamically in an arbitrary manner. Nodes of these networks function as routers
which discover and maintain routes to other nodes in the network.[2]

2 Hierarchical Routing
1.1 MANET. Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) can be defined as a
confederation of mobile systems, which is created on-the-fly and is able to sustain
itself in a dynamically changing environment. When the environment changes, the
internal connections between elements of this network (nodes) might also change.
This network achieves integrity by constant reorganization. The main assumption is
that two devices wanting to communicate in such a network are out if their own
wireless transmitter range but can communicate using other devices belonging to this
network. Those devices can be placed arbitrary and can move dynamically.[4]

Figure 1 Example ad hoc network [4]

1.2 Problems in MANET. From previous part it can be concluded that ad hoc
networks are characterized by dynamic changes, being depended from limited energy
supply and unpredictability of connections. Traditional routing protocols used in
wired networks are not able to satisfy high requirements of MANET routing. They are
not designed in a way which allows to react quickly to changes in topology. Also
calculating routes require more processing time what results in higher energy
consumption. This is not acceptable in case of battery powered mobile devices.
This situation requires developing new routing protocols which would fulfill all
those strict requirements. This is the task of MANET working group from IETF
organization.[4]

2. Different types of routing in ad hoc networks. There are many different
protocols that can work in an ad hoc network. Their differ radically in the way they
work and what is their use. To make those protocols clearer a classification according
to their characteristics will be presented.
2.1 Proactive routing protocols. Proactive protocols (called also table-driven
protocols) are routing according to the routing tables. They store information about
network topology and store routes to every node in the network, regardless if there is
a communication or not. This requires periodic refreshing of the routes to
accommodate to changing conditions like connection interrupt or line congestion.
Routes update use a lot of resources but it is necessary to be done quite often so
invalid routes will be eliminated from the routing table and packets will not be lost.
Additionally, increase in information flow negatively influences energy consumption
Hierarchical Routing 3
in mobile devices. Their advantage is rather fast determining of the routes. An
example routing is DSDV. [5]
Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing protocol (DSDV) is a table-driven
algorithm based on the classical Bellman-Ford routing mechanism. The
improvements made to the Bellman-Ford algorithm include freedom from loops in
routing tables. Every mobile node in the network maintains a routing table in which
all of the possible destinations within the network and the number of hops to each
destination are recorded. Each entry is marked with a sequence number assigned by
the destination node. The sequence numbers enable the mobile nodes to distinguish
old routes from new ones, and avoiding the formation of routing loops. Routing table
updates are periodically transmitted throughout the network in order to maintain
table consistency. To solve the potential problem of large amount of network traffic
that such updates can generate, route updates can employ two possible types of
packets. The first is known as a full dump. This type of packet carries all available
routing information and can require multiple network protocol data units (NPDUs).
During periods of occasional movement, these packets are not transmitted frequently.
Smaller incremental packets are used to relay only that information which has
changed since the last full dump. Each of these broadcasts should fit into a standard-
size NPDU to decrease the amount of traffic generated. The mobile nodes maintain
an additional table where they store the data sent in the incremental routing
information packets. New route broadcasts contains the address of the destination,
the number of hops to reach the destination, the sequence number of the information
received regarding the destination, as well as a new sequence number unique to the
broadcast. The route labeled with the most recent sequence number is always used.
In the event that two updates have the same sequence number, the route with the
smaller metric is used in order to optimize (shorten) the path. [2]

2.2 Reactive routing protocols. Reactive protocols are also called on-demand
routing protocols. They look for a route only when it is needed. Usually, topology
recognition takes place when the packet is send. Typical characteristics of these
protocols is the fact that control traffic is reduced and so is the energy consumption.
Necessity of looking up route before sending packet influences negatively the time of
delivery of the packet. An example of this type of routing is DSR.[3]
Dynamic Source Routing - The Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol presented
is an on-demand routing protocol that is based on the concept of source routing.
Mobile nodes are required to maintain routing tables that contain the source routes of
which the node is aware. Entries in the routing tables are continually updated as new
routes are learned. The protocol consists of two major phases: route discovery and
route maintenance. When a mobile node has a packet to send to some destination, it
first consults its routing table to determine whether it already has a route to the
destination. If it has an unexpired route to the destination, it will use this route to send
the packet. On the other hand, if the node does not have such a route, it initiates route
discovery by broadcasting a route request packet. This route request contains the
address of the destination, along with the source nodes address and a unique
identification number. Each node receiving the packet checks whether it knows of a
route to the destination. If it does not, it adds its own address to the routing table of
the packet and then forwards the packet along its outgoing links. To limit the number
4 Hierarchical Routing
of route requests propagated on the outgoing links of a node, a mobile node only
forwards the route request if the request has not yet been seen by the mobile node and
if the mobile nodes address does not already appear in the routing table.[2]

2.3 Hierarchical routing protocols. This type of protocols create a logical,
hierarchical structure of the network. All nodes at the same hierarchy level are
communicating between themselves. Elected nodes of the higher hierarchy level
create a similar structure. This type of networks structure allows downsizing the
routing tables and reducing the load resulting from data processing. This type of
routing protocol in theory is the best for ad-hoc networks and it will be described in
details later.[5]

2.4 Other routing protocols. There exist few other types of routing protocols but
they designed for specific types of the devices or are just an extension for one of
above types of routing. E.g. a geographical routing protocol is a protocol that is aided
by data about physical localization of every node in the network. Packets are sent
including this information so they do not slow down the whole network. Other type
are power aware protocols. They are designed to save the energy of mobile devices
what is very important when using a battery. They are not typical routing protocols
but they enhance other protocols so they are power aware.[3]

3.Differences of hierarchical routing. The routing protocols mentioned above
are called flat routing. In flat routing, the next hop which a mobile node will take to
the destination is a physical next hop of this node. In large ad hoc networks (hundreds
of mobile nodes), flat routing will cause performance degradation. The main reasons
are: firstly, the routes hop count will become bigger in a large scale network, and
link breakage will happen frequently and end-to-end delay will increase. If some
nodes are highly mobile, link failure will become even more severe. Secondly, heavy
overhead introduced by routing protocol can consume more network capacity.
Thirdly, the routing information about remote nodes can become inaccurate due to the
long transmission time. The hierarchical routing protocols are developed to address
the network scalability problem.
In hierarchical routing protocols, the network consists of a number of clusters.
Each cluster has a cluster leader. It is assumed that all the nodes in a cluster are in
the direct transmission range of the cluster leader. In some protocols, cluster leaders
are more than one hop away, all that is really necessary is for nodes to know how to
reach their cluster leader and the other way. If a node is in the transmission range of
more than one cluster leader, it becomes a gateway, and can be used by cluster
leaders to relay packets between clusters. Inside a cluster, transmission happens
between the cluster head and nodes. Instead of recording a route hop-by-hop,
hierarchical routing records a route cluster-by-cluster. Because there may be more
than one gateway between two clusters, the route will become more robust.

4.Safari as a hierarchical routing protocol. A good example of a hierarchical
routing protocol is Safari. Its real name is Self-organizing, hierarchical architecture
for scalable ad hoc networking and it is a project that aims to create an efficient
routing protocol for ad hoc networks. This project obtained a grant from National
Hierarchical Routing 5
Science Foundation and is developed by a group of researchers and students from
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in Houston.
Main theories were presented in 2003 but in 2007 new version was presented with
realization called Masai.

4.1. Main Safari assumptions
- Self organizing network hierarchy that recursively groups participating nodes into
an adaptive, locality-based hierarchy of cells
- Scalable ad hoc network routing protocol that uses a hybrid of proactive and
reactive routing information in the cells and scales to much larger number of nodes
than previous ad hic network routing protocols
- Self-organizing higher layer network services and applications supported by
distributed hash table grounded in the network hierarchy
- Integration with Internet infrastructure where it exists.
Safari is a hybrid algorithm what means that it links proactive and reactive routing.
Route to the destination cell is calculated in a proactive way. Route to the destination
node within destination cell, as well as route repair is calculated in a reactive way.[7]

4.2.Process of building a hierarchy.

Figure 2 Mesh of nodes (authors own)
Out of all network nodes they self-elect to become a higher level node called drum.

Figure 3 Beacon range
Drum nodes send limited-propagation beacon floods. Beacons contain information
that builds up the routing table. These information are coordinates of the drum that
6 Hierarchical Routing
sent the beacon, previous hop node from which the beacon was received, hop count
back to that drum and sequence number of the most recent beacon from that drum.

Figure 4 Fundamental cells
Other nodes associate with a drum to form cells. Drums at one level self-elect to
become drum at next higher level and create cells of the higher level too. Range of a
beacon include nodes that are in the cell associated with that drum, nodes few hops
away, giving them a chance to join that cell and nodes in the containing cell one level
up in the hierarchy.

Figure 5 Coordinates
Each node has a coordinates that describe the cell that the node belongs too at each
level of hierarchy. Coordinates are stored in a Distributed Hash Table.

4.3 Routing in Safari

Figure 6 3 level hierachy
Hierarchical Routing 7
Source node S wants to send a packet to destination node D. At first, packet is
routed to the buoy of the highest hierarchy level in the cell that the destination cell is
associated to. With every hop the routing table of the current node is looked up for the
coordinates of the destination node. Algorithm is similar to the one used in the
Internet. Coordinates are compared to each entry in the routing table and the longest
matching prefix is chosen.

Figure 7 Routing to destination fundamental cell
When the packet arrives to a node that has an entry in the routing table that longer
part of prefix matches packet is routed to direction of buoy that is 1 level lower in
the hierarchy. Important thing is that packets are routed toward drums, not through
drums.

Figure 8 Routing with fundamental cell
When packet arrives in the correct cell, routing is switched from proactive to
reactive. For this purpose a commonly known DSR protocol was adapted. It discovers
the routes only when there is a need (Route Discovery). DSR was originally designed
for small and medium sized networks, that is why in Safari it is used only inside the
fundamental cell. The size of the fundamental cell is a compromise between two
values. Cell has to be small enough for efficient reactive routing inside the cell but
large enough to minimize when nodes move to new cells. DSR is efficient inside
fundamental cell because it detects broken routes only as they are used (Route
Maintenance), it has very low overhead, scalable to mobility and traffic needs and
there is zero overhead until new route is needed.[1]

8 Hierarchical Routing
4.4 Reactive Inter-cell Route Repair. Beacons are sent only periodically with
long intervals. This is important to keep low overhead. The higher the level in
hierarchy, the less frequent the beacon. In case that the nodes moved there is a high
possibility that the reverse path might fail. When the broken route is discovered, all
packets that are being sent are stored in a buffer and a Local Route Request is being
sent. Node receiving this packet searches its routing table for the hierarchical address
of the destination node. If the node nds a longer prex match for the destination
hierarchical address or if the node nds a prex match of the same length but with a
greater sequence number, or if the prex match length and the sequence number are
both the same but the hop count in the routing table entry is less than that in the
REQUEST, the node returns a LOCAL ROUTE REPLY containing the information
from the matching routing table entry, back to the originator of the REQUEST. This
new path is reestablished like it would be the original beacon path.[7]

4.5 Efficiency of Sahari routing. Simulation done by authors of [1] and by author
of this paper using NS-2 network simulator show the differences to other routing
protocols. Safari outperforms other routing protocols when used in large networks.
For 50 node network packet delivery latency is similar to DSR but in case of 1000
node network DSR time increases radically. In case of all nodes mobile the difference
is even easier to see.[1]

Figure 9. Packet delivery ratio vs. network size, with all nodes mobile.[1]


5.Conclusions. All types of routing protocol are still popular. This is because users
have different expectations considering how routing protocols would work. Every
type of routing has advantages and disadvantages but also each one of them is
designed for different type of situation. If user wants the network to react fast and
energy consumption is not an issue, the best choice would be a proactive protocol. In
case of power awareness a reactive protocol would be the right choice. Users looking
for a solution in the middle should focus their attention on a hybrid, hierarchical
protocol like Safari. In case of smaller networks it is as efficient as other protocols
Hierarchical Routing 9
and in case of large networks with many nodes mobile it outperforms other protocols
completely. Although Safari exists since 2004, it is still not a standardized protocol or
there is no real life implementation. There is a hope that MANET will make Safari an
official standard for mobile ad hoc networks.
10 Hierarchical Routing
6. References
[1] A. K. Saha and D. B. Johnson, Safari: A Self-Organizing Hierarchical
architecture for scalable ad hoc networking, Rice University, Department of
Computer Science Technical Report, April 2007.
http://safari.rice.edu/ (26.06.2008)
[2] E. M. Royer and C.-K. Toh, A Review of Current Routing Protocols for Ad Hoc
Mobile Wireless Networks, IEEE Personal Communications Magazine, April 1999,
[3] Jakub Soczyski Nietypowe algorytmy rutowania. M.Sc. Thesis, September 2004
http://zskl.zsk.p.lodz.pl/~morawski/Dyplomy/Praca%20dyplomowa%20p.%20Sloczy
nskiego.pdf (26.06.2008)
[4] Laura Marie Feeney: Introduction to MANET Routing. Swedish Institute of
Computer Science
www.nada.kth.se/kurser/kth/2D1490/05/lectures/feeney_mobile_adhoc_routing.pdf
(26.06.2008)
[5] Survey on Mobile Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols and Cross-Layer Design:
Survey on Mobile Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols and Cross-Layer Design. The
Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, August 2004
www.minema.di.fc.ul.pt/reports/report_routing-protocols-survey-final.pdf
(26.06.2008)
[6] Alex Ali Hamidian: A Study of Internet Connectivity for Mobile
Ad Hoc Networks in NS 2. January 2003.
www.telecom.lth.se/Personal/alexh/rapport.pdf (26.06.2008)
[7] A. K. Saha and D. B. Johnson: Analysis of Safari: An architecture for scalable ad
hoc networking and services Rice University, Department of Computer Science
Technical Report 0304, December 2003.
[8] Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Andrzej Grayski, Adam Jarczyk: Sieci Komputerowe.
Wydawnictwo Helion, 2004
ftp://ftp.helion.pl/online/siecik/siecik-3.pdf (26.06.2008)