Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks: Protocols and Systems [Paperback]

Chai K Toh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 13, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0130078174 | ISBN-13: 978-0130078179 | Edition: 1

The authoritative guide to the state of the art in ad hoc wireless networking.

• Reflects the field's latest breakthroughs
• Covers media access, routing, service discovery, multicasting, power conservation, transport protocol, and much more
• Includes a complete narration of prototype implementation with communication performance results from practical field trials
• Introduces key applications for home, business, auto, and defense

"Ad hoc" wireless networks eliminate the complexities of infrastructure setup and administration, enabling devices to create and join networks "on the fly"-anywhere, anytime, for virtually any application. The field is rapidly coming of age, reflecting powerful advances in protocols, systems, and real-world implementation experience. In Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks, one of the field's leading researchers brings together these advances in a single consolidated and comprehensive archive. C.K. Toh covers all this, and more:

• Key challenges: device heterogeneity, diverse traffic profiles, mobility, and power conservation
• Routing protocols for ad hoc networks, including Associativity Based Routing (ABR) and other IETF MANET protocols
• Real-world implementation issues-including a complete prototype implementation
• Ad hoc wireless network performance: results obtained from the latest field trials
• Leading approaches to service discovery
• Addressing TCP over an ad hoc wireless network environment
• Support for multicast communications
• The role of Bluetooth and WAP

Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks introduces detailed application scenarios ranging from home and car to office and battlefield. C.K. Toh also introduces several of the field's leading projects, from Motorola's PIANO platform to UC Berkeley's "Smart Dust." Whether you're a researcher, scientist, implementer, consultant, technical manager, CTO, or student, you won't find a more authoritative and comprehensive guide to the new state of the art in ad hoc networking.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

C.K. TOH chairs the IEEE Technical Subcommittee on Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks and is Director of the Ad Hoc Wireless Networking Consortium. He serves as an editor for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Networks, the Journal on Communications & Networks (JCN), and the Personal Technologies Journal. As a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, he has consulted for numerous organizations, including Hughes, Nortel, and TRW. C.K. holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge and is a Chartered Electrical Engineer.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

So many advances have been made in the field of infrastructureless wireless networks that it is time to consolidate the insights and technical know-how of this exciting and state-of-the-art technology into a book for educational and research purposes.

This book presents an introduction to wireless networks and packet radio networks in Chapters 1 and 2. These chapters allow the reader to gain a broader understanding of existing wireless networks before embarking into the details of ad hoc wireless networks. Packet radio networks are considered an earlier form of ad hoc networks since they address mobility and allow repeaters to be mobile. Chapter 3 provides an introduction to ad hoc wireless networks, highlighting the presence of device heterogeneity, different traffic profiles, mobility, and technical challenges. Chapter 4 exposes the problems associated with media access in ad hoc networks and presents some suitable solutions. Chapter 5 then gives an overview of existing ad hoc routing protocols, highlighting their features and differences. A new routing protocol based on the concept of long-life routing, or associativity, is presented in Chapter 6.

Insights into the implementation of a practical ad hoc wireless network are revealed in Chapter 7. Many may wonder about the communication performance of a practical ad hoc wireless network. Chapter 8 discusses this and presents results obtained from practical field trials. The importance of power conservation and the impact of periodic beaconing on battery life are discussed in Chapter 9. Support for multicast communications in an ad hoc wireless network and the various existing multicast routing protocols are discussed in Chapter 10. Support for reliable TCP communications over an ad hoc mobile environment is presented in Chapter 11.

Users of a network must be able to discover the presence of services in the network. Hence, Chapter 12 explains some existing service discovery methods. Fundamentals of the evolving Bluetooth technology are given in Chapter 13. The principles of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) are explained in Chapter 14. Possible ad hoc mobile applications are revealed and discussed in Chapter 15. Finally, a conclusion is presented in Chapter 16.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (December 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130078174
• ISBN-13: 978-0130078179
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Broad coverage but written in a hurry, April 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks: Protocols and Systems (Paperback)

This book gives a broad overview over ad hoc wireless
networks. Being broad in 300 pages necessarily implies
being shallow, at least in some of the topics. Interestingly,
the topic that's covered in most detail is the author's
own routing algorithm, which is not one of the most popular
ones.
While it certainly provides valuable information,
the book has some serious flaws and inconsistencies
in both contents and presentation.
Some examples of flaws include:
(1) Propagation delay does _not_ depend on packet size.
(2) TCP does _not_ establish a virtual circuit.
(3) The TCP header does _not_ include the IP address.
(4) Bluetooth supports 8 (not 7) devices per piconet;
transmit power is not 800uA (power is not expressed in
amps anyway). (5) If for a two-hop connection, the
throughput is 1/2 (compared to the link capacity), and
for a three-hop connection, it's 1/3, that can _not_
be extrapolated to 1/N for an N-hop connection. Rather,
the throughput will stay constant after 3-5 hops,
depending on the ratio between the transmission and interference
radius. (6) A constant function f(x)=c is _not_ a linear
function. (7) The output power of the Lucent WaveLAN
card is not -80dBm.
Section 8 is heavily based on simulation, and the
text lacks a detailed interpretation that could be
much more insightful than just the simulation results.
The impression that this book was written in a big
hurry stems from the following facts:
Figures are helpful but are sometimes drawn carelessly
(including most of the photographs); the book has lots of
typos; at one point a whole paragraph is repeated word by
word two pages later, which should have been discovered
when proofreading.
Personally I would refrain from calling Bluetooth
"ridiculous" - there were a lot of smart people involved
in the development. If this is the author's opinion, he
should declare it as such.
In summary, I was quite disappointed by the book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A biased book, February 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks: Protocols and Systems (Paperback)

This is the second (expensive) book I bought that is authored by CK Toh. I am disappointed once again. The book is nice in a sense that it's the first to cover ad hoc networks in general, not just routing. However, I find this book extremely biased. The author could have maintained objectivity in deciding what to cover in this book, and how they are described. He spends too much space explaining his own protocols (unfortunately, they are not well recognized in the research area) while fails to give in-depth study of other important protocols. Clearly disappointing.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a book to have, December 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks: Protocols and Systems (Paperback)

Luckily I had an ability to read this book before buying. I was very dissapointed with the content. There are quite a number of serious errors especially in TCP description. The coverage lacks depth. The new methodology proposed by the author in his unicast routing algorithm is just another kind of metrics with the same good old SPF idea behind (the description of the idea makes good 1/3 of the book).

I would not recommend it to anyone.