Link State Routing Overhead in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks: A Rate-Distortion Formulation

Abstract— In this paper we use an information-theoretic formulation for characterizing the minimum routing overhead of link state routing in a mobile ad hoc network. We formulate the minimum overhead problem as a rate-distortion problem. We evaluate lower bounds on the minimum overhead incurred by maintaining link state information when link state routing protocols are designed with guaranteed delivery ratio for data packets. We also characterize the deficit caused by the routing overhead on the overall transport capacity of a mobile network. Further we derive a threshold value for the delivery error ratio, and conclude that no link state routing protocol can achieve a delivery error ratio smaller than this threshold.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Di Wang, Alhussein A. Abouzeid
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2008, Link State Routing, Link State Routing Protocol, Routing Overhead