Excerpts

Preface In the last few years, there has been a big interest in ad hocwireless networks as they have tremendous military and commercialpotential. An ad hoc wireless network is a wireless network, comprisedof mobile computing devices that use wireless transmission forcommunication, having no fixed infrastructure (a central administrationsuch as a base station in a cellular wireless network or an access pointin a wireless local area network). The mobile devices also serve asrouters due to the limited range of wireless transmission of thesedevices, that is, several devices may need to route or relay a packetbefore it reaches its final destination. Ad hoc wireless networks can bedeployed quickly anywhere and anytime as they eliminate the complexityof infrastructure setup. These networks find applications in severalareas. Some of these include: military communications (establishingcommunication among a group of soldiers for tactical operations whensetting up a fixed wireless communication infrastructure in enemyterritories or in inhospitable terrains may not be possible), emergencysystems (for example, establishing communication among rescue personnelin disaster-affected areas) that need quick deployment of a network,collaborative and distributed computing, wireless mesh networks,wireless sensor networks, and hybrid (integrated cellular and ad hoc)wireless networks. The purpose of this book is to provide students, researchers,network engineers, and network managers with an expert guide to thefundamental concepts, design issues, and solutions to the issues-- architectures and protocols -- and the state-of-the-art researchdevelopments in ad hoc wireless networking. A unique feature of the bookis that it deals with the entire spectrum of issues that influence thedesign and performance of ad hoc wireless networks, and solutions to theissues, with easy-to-understand illustrative examples highlighting theintuition behind each of the solutions. This book, organized into fourteen chapters, each covering a uniquetopic in detail, first presents (in Chapters 1-4) the fundamental topicsinvolved with wireless networking such as wireless communicationstechnology, wireless LANs and PANs, wireless WANs and MANs, and wirelessInternet. It then covers all important design issues (in Chapters5-11) -- medium access control, routing, multicasting, transport layer,security, quality of service provisioning, energy management --in ad hocwireless networking in considerable depth. Finally, some recent relatedimportant topics covered in this book (in Chapters 12-14) includewireless sensor networks, hybrid wireless architectures, pricing inmulti-hop wireless networks, ultra wideband technology, Wi-Fi systems,optical wireless networks, and Multimode 802.11. The book is intended as a textbook for senior undergraduate andgraduate-level courses on ad hoc wireless networks. It can also be usedas a supplementary textbook for undergraduate courses on wirelessnetworks, wireless/mobile communications, mobile computing, and computernetworks. The exercise problems provided at the end of each chapter addstrength to the book. A solutions manual for instructors is availablefrom Prentice Hall. The book is a useful resource for the students andresearchers to learn all about ad hoc wireless networking and furthertheir research work. In addition, the book will be valuable toprofessionals in the field of computer/wireless networking. We owe our deepest gratitude to Karthigeyan, Jayashree, and Archanafor reading line by line all the chapters and suggesting ways to correcttechnical and presentation problems. We wish to express our thanks tothe following HPCN lab students who have contributed mightily to thisbook writing project: Archana, Bhaya Gaurav Ravindra, Bheemarjun,Jagadeesan, Jayashree, Karthigeyan, Rajendra Singh Sisodia, Srinivas,Subir Kumar Das, Vidhyashankar, and Vyas Sekar. Raj Kumar drew all theillustrations and we thank him for his excellent work. We appreciate theefforts of Steven M. Hirschman, Irving E. Hodnett, and ShivkumarKalyanaraman in reviewing our draft manuscript and suggestingimprovements. We would like to gratefully acknowledge the help renderedby the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, especially forcreating an excellent working environment, the Department of Science andTechnology, New Delhi, and the Curriculum Development Cell of the Centrefor Continuing Education, IIT Madras for providing the financial aid forwriting this book. Infosys Technologies Ltd., Bangalore, providedfinancial support to the second author for wireless networking researchover the last four years, and he is indebted to Infosys for the same. Weare thankful to Bernard Goodwin and his colleagues at Prentice Hall fortheir excellent work in producing this book. Last though not least, weacknowledge the love and affection from our families. This project wouldnever have been successfully completed but for their understanding andpatience. We have taken reasonable care in eliminating typographical or othererrors that might have crept into the book. We encourage you to sendyour comments and suggestions to us via email. We appreciate yourfeedback and hope you enjoy reading the book. C. Siva Ram Murthy, murthy@iitm.ernet.in B. S. Manoj, bsmanoj@cs.iitm.ernet.in Excerpted from Ad Hoc Wireless Networks: Architectures and Protocols by C. Siva Ram Murthy, B. S. Manoj All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.