Cluster-based inter-domain routing (cidr) protocol for MANETs

Abstract

Nowadays, inter-domain routing for MANETs draws increasing attention because of military and vehicular applications. The challenges in wireless, mobile inter-domain routing include dynamic network topology, intermittent connectivity, and routing protocol heterogeneity. The existing Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the de facto inter-domain routing protocol for the Internet. But BGP is not applicable to MANETs because the BGP design is based on a static Internet which does not support dynamic discovery of members, and cannot scale to mobile, dynamic topology environments. The proposed cluster-based inter-domain routing (CIDR) protocol obtains efficient communications among MANETs and achieves scalability in large networks by using the clustering technique. The proposed approach generates clusters using group affinity. In each domain, the distributed clustering algorithm discovers the set of “traveling companions” - these are the nodes that stick together as a group for some time or for some common tasks. It elects within each set a Cluster Head (CH) for each affinity group. Affinity is defined in terms of some common characteristics, such as group motion or task. The clusters (i.e., subnets) can be defined a priori or may evolve dynamically by the affinity of geography, motion, or task. The cluster head in the subnet acts as local DNS for own cluster and also (redundantly) for neighbor clusters. The cluster head advertises to neighbors and the rest of the network its connectivity, members, and domain information. The advertising protocol plays the role of BG Protocol. In the proposed protocol, packets to remote nodes are routed via cluster-head advertised routes, and packets to local destinations are routed using the local routing algorithm. The experiments have shown that the proposed inter-domain routing has achieved scalability and robustness to mobility.