Prof. Dr. Siva Ram Murthy

"Lifetime Driven MAC Protocols for Ad Hoc Networking"

In the last few years, there has been a big interest in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks as they have tremendous military and commercial potential. An Ad Hoc Wireless Network is a wireless network, comprising of mobile nodes (which can also serve as routers) that use wireless transmission, having no infrastructure (central administration such as a Base Station in a Cellular Wireless Network or an Access Point in a Wireless LAN). Ad Hoc Wireless Networks can be set up anywhere and anytime as they eliminate the complexities of infrastructure setup. Ad Hoc wireless Networks find applications in several areas. Some of these include: military applications (establishing communication among a group of soldiers for tactical operations as setting up of a fixed infrastructure in enemy territories or in inhospitable terrains may not be possible), collaborative and distributed computing, emergency operations, wireless mesh networks, wireless sensor networks, and hybrid (integrated Cellular and Ad hoc) wireless networks.
In this talk, I first present a brief overview of the major issues that influence the design and performance of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks. As the performance of any wireless network hinges on the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, more so for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, I present, in detail, novel distributed homogeneous and heterogeneous battery aware MAC protocols, which take benefit of the chemical properties of the batteries and their characteristics, to provide fair node scheduling and increased network and node lifetime through uniform discharge of batteries.