Performance Improvement in MANETs: A Cross Layer Approach via TCP
S. NagaMallik Raj, S. Smys, Gnanadhas Josemin Bala · 2009
Abstract- Mobile Ad Hoc network is a collection of mobile nodes that are arbitrarily located in such a manner that the interconnections between nodes are capable of dynamically changing on a continual basis. Reliable transport protocols such as TCP are tuned to perform well in traditional wired networks where packet losses occur mostly because of congestion. In wireless link packet losses (due to noise) are often more significant than congestion losses. Congestion avoidance results in a very low utilization of the link when there is an appreciable rate of losses due to link errors. This issue is very significant for wireless links. In this paper to overcome network performance problems, a cross layer design which helps in sharing the information while the layers separation at the design level is still maintained is proposed. This minimizes data retransmissions and losses by analyzing and reacting appropriately to different events occurring at lower layers. The route failure notification from MAC to network layer and the route change notification from network layer to MAC is brought up to the TCP layer, to evolve an efficient and reliable transport protocol in Ad Hoc networks. The mobile network simulator GLOMOSIM is used to study the performance of the network.