As deployment of wireless ad hoc networks for location-based services increases, accurate localization of mobile nodes is becoming more important. Localization of a mobile node is achieved by estimating its distances from a group of anchor nodes. If some anchors are malicious and colluding, localization accuracy cannot be guaranteed. In this article, we present the security conditions for exact localization in the presence of colluding malicious anchors. We first derive the minimum number of truthful anchors that are required for exact localization in 2-D Euclidean space where some anchors may be collinear. Second, we extend our security condition to 3-D localization where some anchors may be coplanar.

Link and node trustworthiness are important metrics in wireless ad hoc networks. Many existing wireless ad hoc network routing algorithms assume the availability of precise trustworthiness information. This, however, is an unrealistic assumption given the dynamics of wireless ad hoc networks. Therefore, a realistic method is needed to evaluate trustworthiness by mitigating uncertainty in the estimation process. In this paper, we propose a novel trustworthiness estimation model that accounts for uncertainty as well as two uncertainty mitigation schemes. We then illustrate the effectiveness of our schemes using a utility-oriented routing algorithm as a sample application. An extensive simulation study shows that these two uncertainty mitigation schemes significantly increase path stability and the long-term total benefit of the wireless ad hoc network.

Data query is one of the most important issues in wireless ad hoc networks, since the ultimate goal of these networks is to support efficient data sharing among wireless nodes. In this paper, we study the issue of data query for delay-sensitive applications in dense wireless ad hoc networks. We focus our attention on step-by-step expanding ring-based data query, which provides an upper bound on query delay to any expanding ring based query strategies. Two replication strategies including Index Replication (IR) and Data Replication (DR) are considered, to improve the delay performance of data query. We analyze the probabilistic behavior of query delay for both DR and IR by theoretical methods, and develop analytical models to approximate the minimum number of replicas required for both query strategies if an application-specified delay bound is imposed. Our work is validated through extensive simulations.

The mobility control of mobile nodes can be an alternative to the transmitting power adjustment in case that fixed transmitting power is just used in the topology control. Assuming the controllable mobility of nodes, we propose four distributed mobility control algorithms assuring the network connectivity and the capacity improvement. We compare the throughput of each algorithm with the widely accepted capacity scale law considering the energy consumption. The proposed mobility-based topology control algorithms are named according to its operational characteristics; RP (Rendezvous Point), NNT (Nearest Neighbor Tracking), DM (Diffusion Model), and GP (Grid Packing). Through extensive simulations, we show that all the proposed algorithms successfully change a partitioned random network topology into a connected network topology without the power control. Furthermore, the topology reconfigured by the mobility control has the improved network capacity beyond that of the initial network. In the newly defined performance metric, effective capacity, the simulation results show that GP provides more improved and stable performance over various node densities with the short completion time.

In wireless ad hoc networks, providing an authentication service to verify that the broadcast packet is from the claimed sender without modification, is challenging due mainly to the inherently lossy wireless links. This paper presents a novel Secure and Reliable Broadcasting that reinforces the broadcast authentication with reliability and energy-efficiency capabilities by using the cooperative diversity to superimpose two distinct signals. The proposed protocol achieves significant savings of transmission power and fair assurance of reliability among receivers.

In this paper, we consider the broadcast storm problem in dense wireless ad hoc networks where interference among densely populated wireless nodes causes significant packet loss. To resolve the problem, we apply randomized network coding (RNC) to the networks. RNC is a completely different approach from existing techniques to resolve the problem, and it reduces the number of outstanding packets in the networks by encoding several packets into a single packet. RNC is a kind of linear network coding, and it is suited to wireless ad hoc networks because it can be implemented in a completely distributed manner. We describe a procedure for implementing the wireless ad hoc broadcasting with RNC. Further, with several simulation scenarios, we provide some insights on the relationship between the system parameters and performance and find that there is the optimal length of coding vectors for RNC in terms of packet loss probability. We also show a guideline for the parameter setting to resolve the broadcast storm problem successfully.

This paper addresses the issue of transmission scheduling in wireless ad hoc networks. We propose a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) scheduling scheme based on edge coloring and probabilistic assignment, called CP-TDMA. We categorize the conflicts suffered by wireless links into two types: explicit conflicts and implicit conflicts, and utilize two different strategies to deal with them. Explicit conflicts are avoided completely by a simple distributed edge-coloring algorithm µ-M, and implicit conflicts are minimized by applying probabilistic time slot assignments to links. We evaluate CP-TDMA analytically and numerically, and find that CP-TDMA, which requires only local information exhibits a better performance than previous work.

The basic carrier sense multi-access control scheme for multicast communications in wireless ad hoc networks suffers from the well know hidden terminal problem. The data packet collision probability is relatively high, and the packet delivery ratio is sensitive to the network topology, nodes distribution and traffic load. In this paper, we generalize the virtual carrier sense collision avoidance approach to reduce packet collisions in multicast communications. The sender and receivers exchange RTS and CTS packets to reserve the channel. When more than one receivers reply with CTS packets, the sender will detect an "expected" collision which may be interpreted as a valid "clear-to-send" signal provided the collision satisfies the given timing requirements. Together with a receiver-initiated local recovery mechanism, the reliability and packet delivery ratio can be improved to close to 100%.

Recently, the integration of wired and wireless networks has become an interesting issue. The introduction of extending Mobile IP to mobile ad hoc networks not only helps the mobile nodes connect to the Internet but also broadens the scope of the ad hoc networks and increases their application. However, these hybrid schemes faces several security problems from the inherent weakness of ad hoc routing. In this paper, we propose a hybrid authentication scheme of Mobile IP assistance for ad hoc routing security. The regular Mobile IP registration scheme has been refined to an ad hoc key-aided version and now incorporates a novel routing packet authentication mechanism in the ad hoc routing operation. A distinct character of this hybrid scheme is that a Mobile Agent can form a secure ad hoc network where the mobile hosts can be authorized and authenticated by the refined Mobile IP registration scheme. In these findings, we shall propose that the mobile hosts can follow a novel routing packet authentication mechanism to secure the routing packets by using the cryptography of the simple geometric properties of lines. Since the novel routing authentication mechanism does not need digital signatures for completing the routing packet integrity, in this hybrid authentication scheme, the cryptographic computation cost on the mobile hosts' side is relatively minimized.

The unfairness problem among TCP connections has been proved to be very severe in the IEEE 802.11-based wireless ad hoc networks because the hidden station problem still exists and the binary exponential backoff algorithm always favors the latest successful station. In this paper, a novel protocol, neighbor-medium-aware MAC (NEMA-MAC), is proposed to improve the TCP fairness. By adding a medium (channel) state field in the head of the traditional IEEE 802.11 MAC frame, the NEMA-MAC protocol provides a communication mechanism to resolve the hidden station problem. In addition, when a collision occurs, the new backoff algorithm makes the senders cooperatively adjust the contention window according to their local and neighbors' channel usage indexes. The simulation results show that TCP sessions can acquire satisfying fairness and increase the throughput in the NEMA-MAC-based multihop ad hoc networks.

The conventional clustering method has the unique potential to be the framework for power-conserving ad hoc networks. In this environment, studies on energy-efficient strategies such as sleeping mode and redirection have been reported, and recently some have even been adopted by some standards like Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11. However, consider wireless sensor networks. The devices employed are power-limited in nature, introducing the conventional clustering approach to the sensor networks provides a unique challenge due to the fact that cluster-heads, which are communication centers by default, tend to be heavily utilized and thus drained of their battery power rapidly. In this paper, we introduce a re-clustering strategy and a power-limit constraint for cluster-based wireless sensor networks in order to address the power-conserving issues in such networks, while maintaining the merits of a clustering approach. Based on a practical energy model, simulation results show that the improved clustering method can achieve a lifetime nearly 3 times that of a conventional one.