Sending messages to mobile users in disconnected ad-hoc wireless networks

Abstract

An ad-hoc network is formed by a group of mobile hosts upon a wireless network interface. Previous research in this area has concentrated on routing algorithms which are designed for fully connected networks. The usual way to deal with a disconnected ad-hoc network is to let the mobile computer wait for network reconnection passively, which may lead to unacceptable transmission delays. In this paper, we propose an approach that guarantees message transmission in minimal time. In this approach, mobile hosts actively modify their trajectories to transmit messages. We develop algorithms that minimize the trajectory modifications under two different assumptions: (a) the movements of all the nodes in the system are known and (b) the movements of the hosts in the system are not known.