Packet Resequencing and Aggregation in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Packet disordering and resequencing is a common problem in many real-time applications with stringent timing constraints. A typical scenario is when wireless sensor nodes, interconnected with an ad hoc network, are used to monitor a certain event. In such systems, packets will have to be resequenced before consumption because they were disordered while traversing different paths over the ad hoc network. In this paper, we analyze the impact of the wireless network on packet resequencing and aggregation. We propose an en-route resequencing/aggregation technique which minimizes the resequencing delay, optimizes the usage of the available bandwidth and gives better end-to-end delay performance than end-to-end resequencing in wireless ad hoc networks.