A Turnover based Adaptive HELLO Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

We present a turnover based adaptive HELLO protocol (TAP), which enables nodes in mobile networks to dynamically adjust their HELLO messages frequency depending on the current speed of nodes. To the best of our knowledge, all existing solutions are based on specific assumptions (e.g., slotted networks) and/or require specific hardware (e.g., GPS) for speed evaluation. One of the key aspects of our solution is that no additional hardware is required since it does not need this speed information. TAP may be used in any kind of mobile networks that rely on HELLO messages to maintain neighborhood tables and is thus highly relevant in the context of ad hoc and sensor networks. In our solution, each node has to monitor its neighborhood table to count new neighbors whenever a HELLO is sent. This turnover is then used to adjust HELLO frequency. To evaluate our solution, we propose a theoretical analysis based on some given assumptions that provides the optimal turnover when these assumptions hold. Our experimental results demonstrate that when this optimal value is used as the targeted turnover in TAP, the HELLO frequency is correctly adjusted and provides a good accuracy with regards to the neighborhood tables.