On the repair time scaling wall for MANETs

Abstract

The inability of practical MANET deployments to scale beyond about 100 nodes has traditionally been blamed on insufficient network capacity for supporting routing related control traffic. However, this paper points out that network capacity is significantly under-utilized by standard MANET routing algorithms at observed scaling limits. Therefore, as opposed to identifying the scaling limit for MANET routing from a capacity stand-point, it is instead characterized as a function of the interaction between dynamics of path failure (caused due to mobility) and path repair. This leads to the discovery of the repair time scaling wall, which is used to explain observed scaling limits in MANETs. The factors behind the repair time scaling wall are identified and techniques to extend the scaling limits are described.