CT-7691-Mobile Wireless Security 3-2-3

Chapter 8:
Mobile Ad Hoc Networks , Protocols and Security
  Introduction To Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET)

Wireless networks can be classified in two types:

• infrastructure-based wireless network (Infrastructure dependent network)
• Ad hoc wireless networks (Infrastructure-less network)

 An example of the first type of wireless network (infrastructure mode

wireless network) is office wireless local area networks (WLANs),
- where a wireless access point serves all wireless devices or nodes within
the radius.
- Other related examples are, wireless networks set up in airports, homes,
and hospitals, etc., where clients connect to the Internet with the help of
an access point.

Figure, shows an infrastructure mode wireless network.

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Figure. Infrastructure mode wireless network.

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 The other type of wireless networks does not rely on fixed infrastructure,
and it is more commonly called an ad hoc wireless network.
- The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing
infrastructure, such as routers or wireless access points.

- The word ad hoc can be translated as “improvised” or “not organized,” or

“for a particular purpose”, which describes a dynamic network situation.

Example of types of an Ad hoc network are –

• Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET)
• Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET)
• Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)
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- A typical ad hoc mode wireless network is shown in Figure.

Figure. Ad hoc mode wireless network.

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• In wireless network communication, nodes communicate with other nodes
via wireless channels.
• There are two important metrics that are used in the wireless networks:
spectrum ranges and different radio frequencies.
For example, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, and IEEE 802.11g use a radio
frequency of 5.15–5.35, 2.4–2.58, and 2.4–2.58 GHz, respectively.
• The signal strength in a wireless medium decreases when the signal travels
further beyond a certain distance, and it reduces to the point where
reception is not possible.
• Several medium access (MAC) layers are used in wireless networks to
control the use of the wireless medium:
Bluetooth MAC layer 802.15, and WLAN MAC layer 802.11.
• The topology of the wireless network can be different with time because of
the mobility feature.
 Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET)
• A wireless ad hoc network is a collection of two or more wireless devices
having the capability to communicate with each other without the aid of
any centralized administrator.
 They are self-organized, self-configured, and self-controlled infrastructure-less
networks.
 They can be set up or deployed anywhere and anytime because it poses very
simple infrastructure setup and no or minimal central administration.
- Each node in a wireless ad hoc network functions as both a host and a
router.
- The network topology is in general dynamic because the connectivity
among nodes may vary with time due to node mobility, node
departures, and new node arrivals.
- Since the number of wireless nodes changes on the fly, the routing
information also changes to reflect changes in link connectivity.
- Hence, there is a need for efficient routing protocols to allow the nodes
to communicate.
• These networks are mainly used by community users such as military,
researchers, business, students, and emergency services.
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Figure , bellow, shows a simple ad hoc network with three nodes.
- The outermost nodes are not within the transmitter range of each other.
- However, the middle node can be used to forward packets between the
outermost nodes.
- Node B is acting as a router and nodes A, B, and C have formed an ad hoc
network.

Figure. Connectivity between nodes A, B, and C.

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• MANET is a collection of independent mobile nodes that can communicate to
each other via radio waves.
 The mobile nodes can directly communicate to those nodes that are in radio
range of each other, whereas others nodes need the help of intermediate
nodes to route their packets.

 Individual nodes discover dynamically which other nodes they can

communicate with.
- Every node wishing to participate in an ad hoc network must be willing to
forward packets to other nodes.
- A node can be viewed as an abstract entity consisting of a router and a
set of affiliated mobile hosts.
- A router is an entity that, among other things, runs a routing protocol.
- A mobile host is simply an IP-addressable host or entity in the traditional
sense.
 Applications of MANET
• Many Applications
Typical applications include the following:
• Personal area networking
• Military battlefield
• Commercial sector
• Civilian environments

 Personal area networking(PAN)

- cell phone, laptop, ear phone, wrist watch

 Military battlefield: Ad hoc networking can be very useful to maintain an

information network between the soldiers, vehicles, tanks, planes, and
military information headquarters. etc.
Figure, bellow, shows an example of the military ad hoc network.
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Figure . Military application

Military networks are designed to maintain a low probability of intercept

and/or a low probability of detection.
- Hence, nodes prefer to radiate as little power as necessary and transmit as
infrequently as possible, thus decreasing the probability of detection or
interception.
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 Commercial sector: e.g. emergency rescue operation -
The ad hoc form of communications is especially useful in public- safety and
search-and-rescue (SAR) applications.
Figure. shows the ad hoc search-and-rescue application.

Figure. Search-and-rescue application.

 Civilian environments
- meeting rooms, sports stadiums
- boats, small aircraft
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 Home Networking
• Home networking is the collection of electronic products and systems,
enabling remote access and control of those products and systems, and
any available contents such as music, video or data.
• In home networks, a user wants to accomplish data communication in
ways that are affordable, reliable, easy to learn, and easy to use.
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 Conferencing
• Ad hoc network is widely used to create a network in place like
Conferences, where for a short time of period the network is formed.
• One main PC is wired to which the internet facility is given and the rest of
the computers or laptops are connectionless.
One main computer forms the Ad hoc network and tries to connect with
all the rest of the computers to make communication and data transfer
possible.

 Campus use
• Ad hoc Network is also used for Campus use. It’s a small area in which
network is created or formed whenever it is required.
Professor from one building can communicate with the professor of the
other building. No need to set up any wired connection.
 Classification of Ad Hoc Networks
• There is no generally recognized classification of ad hoc networks in the
literature.
However, we can classify Ad hoc networks on the basis of -
 communication procedure (single hop/multihop),
 topology,
 node configuration, and
 network size (in terms of coverage area and the number of devices).

 Classification According to the Communication procedure

• Depending on the category of communication, an ad hoc network can be either
single hop or multihop.
Single-Hop Ad Hoc Network
• Nodes are in their reachable area and can communicate directly, as shown in
Figure next. Singlehop ad hoc networks are the simplest type of ad hoc networks
where
- all nodes are in their mutual range,
i.e., the individual nodes can communicate directly with each other, without
any help of other intermediate nodes.
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Figure. Single-hop ad hoc network

The individual nodes do not have to be static;
they must, however, remain within the range of all nodes,
which means that the entire network could move as a group;
this would not modify anything in the communication relations.
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Multihop Ad Hoc Network
• In this case, some nodes are far and cannot communicate directly.
- Therefore, the traffic of these communication endpoints has to be
forwarded by other intermediate nodes.
Figure below, shows the communication path of far nodes as black lines.

• With this class also, one assumes that the nodes are mobile.
- The basic difficulty of the networks of this class is the node mobility,
i.e., the network topology is subjected to continuous modifications.
- The general problem in networks of this class is the assignment of a
routing protocol.
High-performance routing protocols must be adaptive to the fast
topology modification.
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 Classification According to the Topology
• Based on the network topology, the individual nodes in an ad hoc network
are divided into three different types with special functions:
flat, hierarchical, and aggregate ad hoc networks.
Flat Ad Hoc Networks
• all nodes carry the same responsibility and there is no distinction between
the individual nodes, as shown in Figure.
• All nodes are equivalent and can transfer all functions in the ad hoc network.
- Control messages have to be transmitted globally throughout the network,
but they are appropriate for highly dynamic network topology.
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Hierarchical Ad Hoc Networks
• Hierarchical ad hoc networks consist of several clusters, each one represents
a network and all are linked together, as indicated in Figure, next.
The nodes in hierarchical ad hoc networks can be categorized into two types:
- Master nodes: Administer the cluster and are responsible for passing the
data on to the other cluster.
- Normal nodes: Communicate within the cluster directly together and
with nodes in other clusters with the help of the master node.
- Normal nodes are also called slave nodes.
• In the hierarchical approach, if one of the cluster heads goes down, that
section of the network will not be able to send or receive messages from
other sections for the duration of the downtime of the cluster head.
• Hierarchical architectures are more suitable for low-mobility cases.
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Aggregate Ad Hoc Networks
• Aggregate ad hoc networks bring together a set of nodes into zones.
- the network is partitioned into a set of zones as shown in Figure.
Each node belongs to two levels of topology:
- low-level (node-level) topology and
- high-level (zone-level) topology.
Also, each node may be characterized by two ID numbers:
- node ID number and zone ID number.
In aggregate architectures, we find both intrazone and interzone
architectures, which in turn can support either flat or hierarchical
architectures.
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 Classification According to the Node Configuration
• Classification of ad hoc networks on the basis of the hardware
configuration of the nodes.
- There are two types of node configurations:
 Homogeneous Ad Hoc Networks
 Heterogeneous Ad Hoc Networks

 Classification According to the Coverage Area

• Ad hoc networks can be categorized, depending on their coverage area,
into several classes:
- body area network (BAN),
- personal area network (PAN),
- local area network (LAN),
- metropolitan area network (MAN), and
- wide area network (WAN).
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 Features / Characteristics of MANETs
• Rapidly deployable, self-organized, self-configured, and self-controlled
infrastructure-less networks
• Wireless links
• Every computer or device (node) is a router as well as end host
• Nodes are mobile, topology can be very dynamic
• Nodes must be able to relay traffic since communicating nodes might be out
of range
• Can be a standalone network or it can be connected to external
networks(Internet)
• Radio communication – shared medium
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 Limitations & Challenges of MANETs
• Each node must have full performance.
• Throughput is affected by system loading.
• Reliability requires a sufficient number of available nodes.
• Sparse networks can have problems.
• Large networks can have excessive latency (time delay), which affects some
applications.

The other considerable challenges are pointed out as follows:

• Multihop operation requires a routing mechanism for mobile nodes
• Internet access mechanisms
• Self-configuring networks requires an address allocation mechanism
• Mechanism to detect and act on, merging of existing networks
• Dynamic topology maintenance
• Scaling to large networks
• Limited energy and computing resources
• Security mechanisms
  MANET Protocols
 Routing Protocols for MANETs
• An ad hoc routing protocol is a convention, or standard, that controls how
nodes decide which way to route packets between computing devices in a
mobile ad hoc network.
• In ad hoc networks, nodes do not start out familiar with the topology of
their networks; instead, they have to discover it.
- The basic idea is that a new node may announce its presence and should
listen for announcements broadcast by its neighbors.
- Each node learns about nodes nearby and how to reach them, and may
announce that it, too, can reach them.
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 Routing Architecture
• The routing architecture of a self-organized network can be either
hierarchical or flat.
- In most self-organized networks, the hosts will be acting as independent
routers, which imply that routing architecture should conceptually be flat,
- that is, each address serves only as an identifier and does not convey
any information about one host that is topologically located with respect
to any other node.

- In flat routing algorithms, the routing tables have entries to all hosts in
the self-organized network.
• However, a flat routing algorithm does not have good scalability.
The routing overhead increases rapidly when the network becomes larger.

Hence, to control channel reuse spatially (in terms of frequency, time, or

spreading code) and reduce routing information overhead, some form of
hierarchical scheme should be employed.
- Clustering is the most common technique employed in hierarchical routing
Architectures.
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The idea behind hierarchical routing is to divide the hosts of a self-organized
network into a number of overlapping or disjoint clusters.
- One node is elected as clusterhead for each cluster.
- This clusterhead maintains the membership information for the cluster.
- Nodes that are not clusterheads will, henceforth, be referred to as
“ordinary nodes”.
- When an ordinary node wants to send packet, the node can send the
packet to the clusterhead that routes the packet toward the destination.
- Clusterhead Gateway Switch Routing(CGSR) and Cluster-Based Routing
Protocol(CBRP) belong to this type of routing scheme.

- Hierarchical routing involves cluster, address, and mobility management.

  Classification of Routing Protocols
• Several ad hoc protocols have been designed for accurate, fast, reliable
routing for a high volume of changeable network topology.
- Such protocols must deal with the typical limitations of changeable
network topology, which include high power consumption, low
bandwidth, and high error rates.

. One of the most popular methods to distinguish mobile ad hoc network

routing protocols is based on how routing information is acquired and
maintained by mobile nodes.
• As shown in Figures, next, these routing protocols may generally be
categorized into three main types:
- proactive or table-driven,
- reactive or on-demand-driven, and
- hybrid.
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• Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) • Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP)

• Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) Protocol • Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV)
• Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) • Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) Protocol
• Cluster-Based Routing Protocol (CBRP) • Fisheye State Routing (FSR)
• Topology Broadcast Reverse Forwarding (TBRF)
• Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP)
• Zone-Based Hierarchical Link State (ZHLS)
• Distributed Spanning Trees Based Routing Protocol (DST)
• Distributed Dynamic Routing (DDR) Protocol
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This classification differentiates the routing protocols according to their

technique, their hop count, link state, and source routing in a route-discovery
mechanism.
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• In protocols based on a hop count technique, each node contains next-hop
information in its routing table, linked to the destination.
• Link state routing protocols maintain a routing table for complete
topology, which is built up by finding the shortest path of link costs.
• In the source routing technique, all data packets carry their routing
information as their header. The originating node can obtain this routing
information, for example, by means of a source routing protocol.
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 Proactive or table-driven Routing Protocol
• A proactive routing protocol is also called a “table-driven” routing protocol.
• Proactive routing protocols enable each node to keep up-to-date routing
information in a routing table.
- This routing table is exchanged periodically with all other nodes, as well as
when network topology changes.
- Thus, when a node needs to send a packet, the route is readily available.
However, most of the routing information that is exchanged is undesired.
- a source node can get a routing path immediately if it needs one.
- all nodes need to maintain a consistent view of the network topology.
- When a network topology change occurs, respective updates must be
propagated throughout the network to notify the change.
Figure next, shows illustrates the concept of proactive protocols
• For example, if node A wanted to send some data to node D,
- it finds node D on the previously prepared topology table, which is stored in
node A.
• In ad hoc networks based on proactive protocols, power and bandwidth
consumption increase due to topology table exchange among nodes after
each change in the nodes’ location.
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Examples of proactive routing protocols include the following:

• Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP)
• Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV)
• Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) Protocol
• Fisheye State Routing (FSR)
• Topology Broadcast Reverse Forwarding (TBRF)
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 Reactive or On-demand Routing Protocol
• Reactive routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks are also called “on-
demand” routing protocols.
• In a reactive routing protocol, routing paths are searched only when needed.
i.e., these protocols create routes to a destination only when required.
- A route discovery operation invokes a route-determination procedure.
i.e., the route discovery procedure is triggered whenever a source wants to send
data to find a destination node, and
the route is maintained through the route maintenance procedure until the route
is no longer required.
- Compared to the proactive routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks, less
control overhead is a distinct advantage of the reactive routing protocols.
- i.e., reactive routing protocols have better scalability than proactive routing
protocols in mobile ad hoc networks.
- However, when using reactive routing protocols, source nodes may suffer from
long delays for route searching before they can forward data packets.
Examples of reactive routing protocols include the following:
• Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV)
• Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) Protocol
• Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA)
• Cluster-Based Routing Protocol (CBRP)
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As shown in Figure , there is no topology table in each node.

- When there is a request in node A to transmit data to node D, the route discovery
process starts by broadcasting to all nodes searching for node D.
- When node D receives this message, it responds to the request to build the route to
node A.
-The process is complete once a route is found or all possible route permutations have
been examined.
- Once a route has been established, it is maintained by a route maintenance procedure
until either the destination becomes inaccessible along every path from the source or
the route is no longer desired.
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 Hybrid Routing Protocol
• Hybrid routing protocols are proposed to combine the merits of both
proactive and reactive routing protocols and overcome their
shortcomings.
- Normally, hybrid routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks exploit
hierarchical network architectures.
- The proper proactive routing approach and reactive routing approach are
exploited in different hierarchical levels, respectively.

Examples of hybrid routing protocols are -

• Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP)
• Zone-Based Hierarchical Link State (ZHLS)
• Distributed Spanning Trees Based Routing Protocol (DST)
• Distributed Dynamic Routing (DDR) Protocol
  Description of some Ad Hoc Routing Protocols
AODV
• The AODV routing protocol uses the on-demand approach for finding
routes; that is,
- the route is established only when it is required by a source node for
transmitting data packets.
- It employs a destination sequence number to identify the most recent
path.
• In AODV, the source node and the intermediate nodes store the next-hop
information corresponding to each flow for data packet transmission.
- When a source requires a route to a destination, it floods the network
with a route request (RREQ) packet.
- On its way through the network, the RREQ packet initiates the creation of
temporary route table entries for the reverse path at every node it passes,
and when it reaches the destination, a route reply (RREP) packet is unicast
back along the same path on which the RREQ packet was transmitted.
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• A mobile node can become aware of neighboring nodes by employing several
techniques, one of which involves broadcasting Hello messages.
• Route entries for each node are maintained using a timer-based system.
- If the route entry is not used immediately, it is deleted from the routing table.
• AODV does not repair broken paths locally.
- When a path breaks between nodes, both nodes initiate route error (RERR)
packets to inform their end nodes about the link break.
- The end nodes delete the corresponding entries from their table.
- The source node reinitiates the path-finding process with a new broadcast ID
and the previous destination sequence number.
• Advantage of AODV protocol- E.g., the routes are established on demand
and destination sequence numbers are used to find the latest route to the
destination.
• Disadvantage AODV protocol - E.g., the intermediate nodes can lead to
inconsistent routes if the source sequence number is very old and the
intermediate nodes have a higher, but not the latest, destination sequence
number, thereby hosting stale entries.
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DSR
• DSR is on-demand protocol designed to restrict the bandwidth consumed by
control packets in ad hoc networks by eliminating the periodic table-update
message required in the table-driven approach.
• The key distinguishing feature of DSR is the use of source routing.
- The sender knows the complete hop-by-hop route to the destination, and
those routes are stored in a route cache.
- The data packet carries the source route in the packet header.
• There are two major phases in this protocol.
- The first is route discovery, which is achieved by flooding the network with
RREQ packets. The destination node, upon receiving an RREQ, responds by
sending an RREP packet back to the source along the same route traversed
by the incoming RREQ packet.
- The second phase is route maintenance. If any link on a source route is
broken, the source node is notified through an RERR packet. The source
removes any route using this link from its cache.
• The advantage of DSR protocol – E.g., it reduces overhead on route
maintenance.
• The disadvantage of DSR protocol – E.g., the packet header size grows with
the route length due to both source routing and RREQ flooding that may
potentially reach all nodes in the network.
• Figure bellow, shows DSR routing mechanism.
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AODV
• DSDV is a table-driven routing scheme for ad hoc mobile
networks.
• DSDV uses the shortest-path routing algorithm to select a
single path to a destination.
• To avoid routing loops, destination sequence numbers have
been introduced.
• In DSDV, full dumps and incremental updates are sent
between nodes to ensure that routing information is
distributed.
• Each routing table lists all destinations with their current hop count and a
sequence number.
- Routing information is broadcast or multicast.
- Each node transmits its routing table to its neighbors.
• Drawback of this protocol -- E.g., it creates large amounts of overhead
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ZRP
• It is an example of MANET hybrid routing protocol.
- is a combination of two ad hoc routing approaches: the reactive (on-
demand) and the proactive (table-driven).
• The network in hybrid routing protocols such as ZRP is divided into
routing zones.
• The routing information within each routing zone is proactively
distributed, while the global routing information is exchanged reactively.
• ZRP approach reduces the delay and the amount of routing overheads.
• ZRP is suitable with a large network span and diverse mobility patterns.
• Around each node, ZRP defines a zone where the radius is measured in
hops.
- Each node uses proactive routing within its zone and reactive routing
outside its zone.
- a given node knows the identity of a route to all nodes within its zone.
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• For example, as shown in Figure , S is a given node; the peripheral nodes
of S are A, B, C, and D. The peripheral nodes with the shortest distance to
S are defined.
These nodes are important for reactive route discovery.
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