Anytime, Anyplace, Anyhow Multimedia Wireless Access:

The Vision of Mobile Ad Hoc Networking

Prof. George N. Aggelou, Institute of Technology, Athens, Greece, Director, G-Alpha
Telecomms, Athens, Greece

Tutorial Overview:
The past decade has shown a phenomenal growth in wireless communications. Cellular
systems have been standardized and Personal Communication Services (PCS) and the
3rd generation radio technology are being used providing wide-band services to mobile
users.
Additionally, wireless networking is being used more and more in both fixed and mobile
usage scenarios, whereas high quality multimedia (voice, video and data) services over
high-speed wireless local area networks (LANs) are becoming a reality. Wireless LANs
(e.g. HiperLAN2, IEEE 802.11), being interconnected to a fixed network, are offering up
to 54Mbps both to residential and business environments with high quality of service
(QoS). The demand of these multimedia applications has been largely witnessed so far
in fixed networks but as life style is rapidly changing, internet-like applications are more
and more attractive to mobile users as well.
In parallel with (and separately from) the single hop model for todays cellular/wireless
communications, another type of model based on radio to radio multihopping, has been
evolving to serve a growing number of applications which rely on a fast deployable,
multihop, wireless infrastructure. A multihop mobile radio network, also called mobile ad
hoc network (MANET) is a self-organizing and rapidly deployable network in which
neither a wired backbone nor a centralized control exists. The network nodes
communicate with one another over scarce wireless channels in a multi-hop fashion.
The ad hoc network is adaptable to the highly dynamic topology resulted from the
mobility of network nodes and the changing propagation conditions.
MANETs are a new paradigm of wireless wearable devices enabling instantaneous
person-to-person,
person-to-machine
or
machine-to-person
communications
immediately and easily. Possible commercial applications include business associates
sharing information during a meeting, students using laptop computers to participate in
an interactive lecture, and emergency disaster relief personnel coordinating efforts in
natural disasters. In these applications, where a fixed backbone is not available, a
readily deployable wireless network is needed. Mobile ad hoc networks are also a good
alternative in rural areas or third world countries where basic communication
infrastructure is not well established. Another interesting application of mobile ad hoc
networks is ubiquitous computing. Intelligent devices are connected with one another

via wireless links and are self-organized in such a way that a newly joined node can
request service from local servers without any human intervention.
When designing mobile ad hoc networks, several interesting and difficult problems arise
due to shared nature of the wireless medium, limited transmission power (range) of
wireless devices, node mobility, and battery limitations. The limited transmission range
of wireless network interfaces coupled with the highly dynamic routing infrastructure,
due to mobility, create a lot of concerns when addressing issues such as dynamic
routing, efficient channel access and quality-of-service (QoS) support.
This tutorial will describe first the idea of ad hoc networking and scenarios where this
technology will make an impact. How the environment of an ad hoc network is very
different from the wired environment, and the effect this has on the design and operation
of routing protocols for ad hoc networks will be extensively explained. A description of a
number of different issues related to medium access control (MAC), routing, and QoS in
mobile ad hoc networks, including the prominent protocols under consideration for
standardization by the IETF, will follow up.
Finally, integration issues with wide area mobility models, such as Mobile-IP, and
Cellular systems, such as the GSM, will also be presented. Open problems and
challenges for ad hoc networks will conclude the presentation.

Tutorial Outline:
1. INTRODUCTION TO WIRELESS NETWORKS
a.

GSM/GPRS wireless communications systems

b.

Baseline UMTS infrastructure

c.

Evolution of All-IP wireless networks

2. MOBILE AD HOC NETWORKING

a.

Issues &Applications

b.

Research Challenges: from MAC to Transport Layer

3. DYNAMIC ROUTING IN MOBILE AD HOC NETWORKS

a.

Routing problems in MANETs

b.

Standardization efforts and the role of the IETF MANET WG

c.

Overview of IETF MANET Routing Protocols & Analysis of the RDMAR

protocol (IETF candidate by G. N. Agglou)

4. WIRELESS MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL/CHANNEL ACCESS PROTOCOLS

a.

Problems at Wireless Access Layer

b.

Overview of IEEE 802.11 & ETSI HIPERLAN type 2 protocols

c.

Analysis of MBCA/BRCA Channel Assignment (Filed for Patent by G. N.

Agglou)

5. QUALITY-OF-SERVICE (QOS) IN WIRELESS/MOBILE NETWORKS

a.

Issues & problems

b.

QoS Signalling protocols

c.

Framework for QoS Wireless Access

6. INTEGRATION WITH WIDE-AREA MOBILITY MODELS

a.
b.

Issues, Challenges & System Requirements

Analysis of an integrated GSM-MANET model (Proposed model to Nokia 3G
Lab/UK by G. N. Agglou)

7. CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSION

Intended Audience:
This presentation is designed to provide an overview of research issues related to
mobile ad hoc networking. The presentation should benefit researchers as well as
postgraduate students from academia, who are interested in areas related to wireless
communications and mobile networking.
Speaker's Biography:

George N. Aggelou (agelou@mbn.gr) is a full-time Professor in the Institute of

Technology, Athens, Greece and director of G-Alpha Telecomms, Athens, Greece. He
holds a Ph.D. in Mobile Multimedia Ad Hoc Networks, a B.Eng. in Communications
Networks and a B.Sc. in Electronics.
In the past years George has joined various international companies, including IBM,
Thomas J. Watson Research Center, NY as a research assistant, D.M. Data, NJ as a
senior software engineer, CISCO Systems, London, UK as a UMTS Consultant
Engineer and INTRACOM S.A, Athens, Greece as a senior UMTS research engineer. In
1999, he also co-founded Mobile E-Commerce Technologies, in London, UK.
George is the editor of a number of conference and journal publications, IETF drafts and
one patent. He is the author of the book Mobile Ad Hoc Networking: Design and
Integration by Mcgraw-Hill, February 2003, and co-author of the book Handbook of
Wireless Ad Hoc Networks by CRC Press, September 2002. He has served as a
technical program committee member in a number of international conferences and as a
panelist at ATAMS' 2001. He is a member of the editorial board of the IEEE
Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWireless). George was the recipient of the
2000 RACAL Prize for Research Excellence, honored by Dr. Chris Ash, RACAL
Research Director.