Structured routing in wireless mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, we propose a new protocol for wireless mobile ad hoc communications, which establishes a dynamic wireless mobile infrastructure to mimic and maintain the operation of the fixed infrastructure in cellular networks, namely, the Virtual Base Stations (VBS) infrastructure-creation protocol. In the VBS protocol, a mobile station is elected from a set of nominees to act as a temporary base station within its zone. Mobile stations elected as VBSs are used to track other mobile stations in the ad hoc network. Moreover, we propose a novel routing protocol, namely, VBS routing. VBS routing utilizes the mobility-tracking mechanism of the VBS infrastructure-creation protocol, to route packets from a source node to a destination node. The new routing protocol is shown to outperform existing ad hoc routing protocols in terms of packet delivery and routing load.