Subject: [NEXTEL-1] ADAPTING AD HOC NETWORK CONCEPTS to LAND MOBILE RADIO SYSTEMS

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 15:54:16 -0500

ADAPTING AD HOC NETWORK CONCEPTS to LAND MOBILE RADIO SYSTEMS
by
Duncan Scott Sharp
B.Sc.E.E., University of Alberta, 1972
PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ENGINEERING
in the School
of
Engineering Science
Duncan Scott Sharp 2002
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
December 2002

- 1 -
Introduction

Geographically distributed teams involved in real-time operations typically
coordinate their work
using mobile radio. Messages are often broadcast (multicast) among the team, and
when a
situation is changing rapidly and real-time reactions between team members
becomes critical,
voice calling dominates. Typically, these work groups are involved in public
safety operations
(e.g., police, fire, rescue, and ambulance agencies), utility operations (e.g.,
electric,
telecommunications, and pipeline networks), and other team operations (e.g.,
construction sites,
special event coverage, emergency response, and disaster recovery). A
characteristic of many of
these applications is that operations tend to be sporadic, with high activity
for a period of time in
an area, then no activity for an extended period.

Ad hoc networks are self organizing networks of user terminals. The user
terminals form the
infrastructure. Because these networks are self organizing, they have the
potential to be
adaptable, robust, and fault tolerant. Because no prior infrastructure is
needed, a network can be
rapidly deployed. These characteristics are an excellent fit for pubic safety,
emergency response,
and disaster recovery communication applications.

Currently, the communication needs of public safety related agencies are met by
land mobile
radio systems. This technology has changed slowly over the past three decades
and tends to lag
commercial cellular telephone technology by at least a decade. In addition to
cellular and ad hoc
network technology, other potential enabling technology for future land mobile
radio systems
includes satellite based mobile systems (e.g., MSAT, Iridium, and Globalstar),
3rd generation
cellular developments, adaptive antennas, software defined radios, the Internet,
mobile, and
pervasive computing, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, and
high-powered, compact
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). In particular, the availability of low cost
GPS receivers has
stimulated its use for navigation support and to support location-aware
applications.
This report consolidates the findings of my investigation into the potential for
next-generation
mobile radio systems to exploit recent advances in mobile ad hoc network
technology.
Specifically, the objective of the project was to identify evolving
technologies, algorithms,
protocols, and architectures for mobile ad hoc networks that may be adopted by
next generation
land mobile radio systems – and, in particular, by mobile radio systems designed
for public safety
communication applications.

The report follows the general sequence of the project. Chapters 2 and 3 present
a needs analysis
for public safety mobile communications covering operational requirements and
traffic
characteristics, respectively. Chapter 4 hypothesizes a system design based on
current approaches
from the literature and covers radio channel, media access, routing, and network
management
aspects. Chapter 5 is a preliminary feasibility assessment of the hypothetical
system design.
Chapter 6 concludes the report with a synopsis of the findings. Appendix A lists
selected
terminology used in this report. Appendix B and C are primers on ad hoc networks
and land
mobile radio, respectively.

Interest in radio based ad hoc networks extends back to the 1970's. Development
languished
somewhat in the 1980’s; partly because we lacked the low cost processors and
memory needed to
run algorithms for ad hoc routing. Since about 1995 interest has been rekindled.
The reference
list in this report is a small sample of the vast and rapidly growing
literature. Throughout the
project, I drew heavily on this extensive literature base. References to
specific source material
are made throughout the text. Although I hesitate to highlight one reference,
the "Handbook of
Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing", edited by I. Stojmenovic, was an
inspiration and a
broad source of recent and highly relevant information from many contributors to
the field
[Stoj02].

This project contributes to the subject by focusing on a specific application
(public safety
communications) and drawing together a synopsis of the current state-of-the-art
as it applies to
this application. The synthesis of an example design and the assessment of its
potential
performance illustrates what is achievable today as well as where more work is
needed. In
addition, during the course of the project, some potentially useful work on
characterizing
multicast voice traffic was undertaken. The report could also provide a starting
point for research
topics or product development studies relating to ad hoc networks.

http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/~ljilja/cnl/pdf/duncan.pdf

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