Exploiting the Synergy between Peer-to-Peer and Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

We argue that there exists a synergy between peerto-peer (p2p) overlay networks for the Internet and mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) connecting mobile nodes communicating with each other via multi-hop wireless links Ð both share the key characteristics of self-organization and decentralization, and both need to solve the same fundamental problem, that is, how to provide connectivity in a decentralized, dynamic environment. We propose Dynamic P2P Source Routing (DPSR), a new routing protocol for MANETs that exploits the synergy between p2p and MANETs for increased scalability. By integrating DSR and a proximity-aware structured p2p overlay routing protocol, DPSR limits the number of the source routes that each node has to discover and rediscover to O(logN), while retaining all the attributes of DSR for dealing with the specifics of ad hoc networks. This is in contrast to the maximum of N source routes each node has to maintain in DSR. Thus DPSR has the potential to be more scalable than previous routing protocols for MANETs, such as DSR and AODV.

In addition to being a network layer multi-hop routing protocol, DPSR simultaneously implements a distributed hash table (DHT) in MANETs; it implements the same functionalities as CAN, Chord, Pastry, and Tapestry, which can be exposed to the applications built on top of it via a set of common p2p APIs.