Mobile ad-hoc networks consist of mobile nodes interconnected by multihop path that has no fixed network infrastructure support. Due to the limited bandwidth and resource, and also the frequent changes in topologies, ad-hoc network should consider these features for the provision of security. We present a secure routing protocol based on identity-based signcryption scheme. Since the proposed protocol uses an identity-based cryptosystem, it does not need to maintain a public key directory and to exchange any certificate. In addition, the signcyption scheme simultaneously fulfills both the functions of digital signature and encryption. Therefore, our protocol can give savings in computation cost and have less amount of overhead than the other protocols based on RSA because it uses identity-based signcryption with pairing on elliptic curve. The effectiveness of our protocol is illustrated by simulations conducted using ns-2.

Topology of a network greatly affects the network performance. Depending on the purpose of a network, a specific topology may perform much better than any other topologies. Since the ad hoc networks are formed for a specific purpose, determining, and constructing the network topology based on the application requirements will enhance system performance. This paper proposes Bluetooth scatternet forming protocol in which the network topology is determined by three parameters. The parameters affecting the topology are the number of maximum slaves in a piconet, the number of maximum piconets that a gateway Bluetooth device can service, and the number of loops needed in the formed scatternet. These parameters can be read from a script file prior to the network formation. This process of reading the important parameters from the file would give users freedom in determining the network topology. The proposed protocol also includes a role negotiation process to accommodate different capabilities of the participating devices. The negotiation process of the protocol allows the resource-limited nodes to participate in the network. Different types of scatternet topologies like star, mesh, ring and line can be formed by specifying the parameters. This paper also discusses theoretical information necessary for calculating network topologies in detail. The protocol is verified with help of simulations, and implementations using commercially available Bluetooth devices. The detailed results are also presented in this paper.

A flooding algorithm is an indispensable and fundamental network control mechanism for achieving some tasks, such notifying all nodes of some information, transferring data with high reliability, getting some information from all nodes, or to reserve a route by flooding the messages in the network. In particular, the flooding algorithm is greatly effective in the heterogeneous and dynamic network environment such as so-called ubiquitous networks, whose topology is indefinite or changes dynamically and whose nodal function may be simple and less intelligent. Actually, it is applied to grasp the network topology in a sensor network or an ad-hoc network, or to retrieve content information by mobile agent systems. A flooding algorithm has the advantages of robustness and optimality by parallel processing of messages. However, the flooding mechanism has a fundamental disadvantages: it causes the message congestion in the network, and eventually increases the processing time until the flooding control is finished. In this paper, we propose and evaluate methods for producing a more efficient flooding algorithm by adopting the growth processes of primitive creatures, such as molds or microbes.

A multi-hop wireless local area network (LAN) is an ad-hoc wireless network that connects to the Internet backbone via an access point. Routing paths between mobile hosts and a fixed host can be divided into two sub-paths, wireless and wired. In this paper, we apply the Hierarchical Routing Tree (HRT) concept to finding wireless sub-paths. That is, by constructing an HRT, each mobile host can find a routing path to an access point (i.e., the HRT root) quickly and thus gain the access to Internet. In addition, we choose the Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol as a point-to-point routing method for sources and destinations located in the same ad-hoc network in order to improve upon a weakness in the HRT method. Numerical experiments are given to show the effectiveness of the hybrid routing method.

In this paper, a novel carrier-sense multiple-access (CSMA) scheme for UWB ad-hoc network is proposed and evaluated. UWB is a kind of spread spectrum communication and it is possible to detect the distance between the nodes. With this positioning capability of the UWB systems, DS-CDMA (DS-UWB) scheme with variable spreading factor is used. In this paper, a novel CSMA scheme that employs the correlation of the spreading code is proposed.

The single path routing protocol, known as the Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector, has been widely studied for use in mobile ad hoc networks. AODV requires a new route discovery whenever a path breaks. Such frequent route discoveries cause a delay due to route discovery latency. To avoid such inefficiency, a multipath routing protocol has been proposed that attempts to find link-disjoint paths in a route discovery. However, when there are two or more common intermediate nodes on the path, the protocol can not find a pair of link-disjoint paths even if the paths actually exist. To reduce this route discovery latency, it is necessary to increase the opportunities for finding a pair of link-disjoint paths. In this paper, we focus on AODV and propose an AODV-based new multipath routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks. The proposed routing protocol uses a new method to find a pair of link-disjoint paths by selecting a route having a small number of common intermediate nodes on its path. Using simulation models, we evaluate the proposed routing protocol and compare it with AODV and the existing multipath routing protocol. Results show that the proposed routing protocol achieves better performance in terms of delay than other protocols because it increases the number of cases where a pair of link-disjoint paths can be established.

We have been developing new cycling environments by using knowledge sharing and speech communication. We have offered multimodal knowledge contents to share knowledge on safe and exciting cycling. We accumulated 140 contents, focused on issues such as riding techniques, trouble shootings, and preparations on cycling. We have also offered a new way of speech communication using an ad-hoc wireless LAN technology for safe cycling. Group cycling requires frequent communication to lead the group safely. Speech communication achieves spontaneous communication between group members without looking around or speaking loudly. Experimental result through actual cycling has shown the effectiveness of sharing multimodal knowledge contents and speech communication. Our new developed environment has an advantage of increasing multimodal knowledge through the accumulation of personal experiences of actual cycling.

In this paper, we propose a modeling framework for supporting QoS routing in mobile ad-hoc wireless networks. The basic motivations of the proposed modeling approach stem from the commonality observed in the location uncertainty in mobile ad-hoc wireless networks and the concept of entropy. These common characteristics have motivated our work in developing an analytical modeling framework using entropy concepts and utilizing mobility information as the corresponding variable features, in order to support and evaluate route stability in self-organizing mobile ad-hoc wireless networks. The corresponding methodology, results and observations can be used by the routing protocols to select the most stable route between a source and a destination, in an environment where multiple paths are available, as well as to create a convenient performance measure to be used for the evaluation of the stability and connectivity in a mobile ad-hoc wireless networks.

The performance of a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is related to the efficiency of the routing protocol in adapting to changes in the network topology and the link status. However, the use of many different mobility models without a unified quantitative "measure" of the mobility has made it very difficult to compare the results of independent performance studies of routing protocols. In this paper, a mobility measure for MANETs is proposed that is flexible and consistent. It is flexible because one can customize the definition of mobility using a remoteness function. It is consistent because it has a linear relationship with the rate at which links are established or broken for a wide range of network scenarios. This consistency is the strength of the proposed mobility measure because the mobility measure reliably represents the link change rate regardless of network scenarios.

A new distributed medium access control (MAC) protocol--Soft Reservation Multiple Access with Priority Assignment (SRMA/PA) protocol--is introduced for supporting the integrated services of real-time and non-real-time applications in mobile ad-hoc networks. The SRMA/PA protocol allows the distributed nodes to contend for and reserve time slots with RTS/CTS-like "collision-avoidance" handshake and "soft reservation" mechanism augmented with distributed and dynamic access priority control. The SRMA/PA protocol realizes distributed scheduling for guaranteeing QoS requirements of integrated services and maximizes statistical multiplexing gain. We have demonstrated by simulation studies that the multiplexing gain can be improved significantly without unduly compromising on system complexity. Moreover, we have shown that the proposed back-off mechanism designed for delay-constrained services is useful for further improving utilization of the channel.

In this paper, we propose a new filesystem named Ad-hoc Filesystem which targets ad-hoc wireless networks. Ad-hoc Filesystem is a serverless filesystem which automatically generates temporary shared space among multiple mobile machines when they gather in a communicable range. The generated space is freely available for participating machines and can be used for any temporary work there. The design of Ad-hoc Filesystem is strongly motivated by the recent wireless network technologies and advances of ad-hoc network techniques. However, targeting such an unstable network forces us a completely different design from existing filesystems. We have designed an initial prototype of Ad-hoc Filesystem and have evaluated the simulation results. Our design is strongly based on an assumption such that people who wish to work together would form a stable group in a range, and replicating data on two different machines would be enough to provide a proper level of availability. Hence, Ad-hoc Filesystem distributes files among multiple machines and duplicates them, in order to keep the files available even if some of participating machines arbitrarily leave the communication range. The directory entries are kept as a soft-state mechanism maintained by exchanging broadcast packets. The simulation results show that using broadcast to maintain system state hardly affects the overall system performance, and optimizations such that delaying replies with broadcast and sensing other packets promiscuously during the delay reduce the overhead significantly. Also the result indicates that our strategy that keeps two replicas for each data is promising to provide availability. Although further investigation based on real implementation remains important work, we believe that the prototype has a contribution to realize the possibility of ad-hoc filesystem by synthesizing number of previous works in areas such as network filesystems, server replication and ad-hoc wireless networks.

Bluetooth wireless technology is short-range and low cost wireless interface, which is optimized for mobile devices providing very low power consumption. However, a scope of Bluetooth application areas is not limited to mobile devices but expands to fixed equipment as well. Not only Bluetooth functions as cable replacement but also it can establish ad-hoc wireless network for voice and data simultaneously. Due to nature of 2.4 GHz ISM frequency band, Bluetooth is equipped with various data packets selection to minimize throughput degradation. Also, to secure connecting to the right target devices, Bluetooth includes authentication and encryption for communication links.

A hybrid system in which mobile terminals (MTs) themselves select whether to communicate directly or via base stations (BSs) from communication conditions, "cellularad-hoc united communication system," has been proposed by the authors. It has been confirmed to have effective channel usage and battery consumption, especially for MTs which tend to communicate with partners which are close together, such as operational mobile robots. In this paper, the hybrid system is examined with respect to handoff rate. This hybrid system uses two modes, a cellular mode and an ad-hoc mode. The former mode is for communication using BSs and the latter is for direct communication. Thus, there will be two kinds of handoffs. One is the ordinary one between BSs and the other is between the two modes. Such a system may suffer from frequent handoffs. Thus the handoff rate of the system was examined. However, by the addition of a simple hysteresis characteristic, the handoff rate was held down closer to that of a pure cellular system in a multipath environment.

An ad hoc wireless network is a collection of mobile hosts that self-forming a temporary network without any required intervention of centralized system. In such environment, mobile hosts, which are not within transmission range from each other, require some other intermediate hosts to forward their packets to form a multi-hop communication. In this paper, an ad hoc network is modeled as a graph. Two nodes within the transmission range of each other are connected by an edge. Given a finite set of mobile nodes, a finite set of edges and a new multicast request, the wireless multicast tree problem (WMTP) is to find a multicast tree for the request so that the multicast loss probability is minimized. We prove the WMTP is NP-complete and a heuristic algorithm, called Degree-Based Multicast Routing Algorithm (DBMRA), is proposed. Based on the DBMRA, one algorithm was proposed to establish backup nodes for the multicast tree to improve the reliability. A node is needed to be backup only when it has a high probability to disconnect the multicast tree seriously. The qualification of a node to be backup is subject to a computed threshold, which is determined by a statistic analysis. The theoretical and experimental analyses are presented to characterize the performance of our algorithms.

A communication system which attains an efficient amalgamation of base station (BS) type cellular communication and non-BS type direct communication for mobile terminals (MTs), "cellularad-hoc united communication system," is proposed. In this system, whether a cellular system or an ad-hoc communication system is chosen by distance and whether the condition is good or not between communicating MTs. In other words, when two terminals are relatively near each other and are in sufficient conditions to communicate directly, they select the ad-hoc communication, while for other cases they use the cellular system. The proposed system was confirmed to have effective channel usage and low battery consumption from the simulation results. It can be also said that this system is suited especially for MTs which tend to communicate with closer partners such as operational mobile robots and autonomous carrier vehicles.