Efficient localized routing for wireless ad hoc networks

We consider a wireless ad hoc network consisting of n points randomly distributed In a two-dimensional plane. We show that, with high probability, we can locally find a path for any pair of nodes such that the length of the path is no more than a constant factor of the minimum. By assuming each node knows its position, the method decides where to forward the message purely based on the positions of current node, its neighbors, and the positions of the source and the target. Our method is based on a novel structure called localized Delaunay triangulation [1] and an efficient localized routing method [2] that guarantees that the distance traveled by the packets is no more than a small constant factor of the minimum when the Delaunay triangulation of wireless nodes are known. Our experiments show that the delivery rates of existing localized routing protocols are increased when localized Delaunay triangulation is used instead of several previously proposed topologies, and the localized routing protocol based on Delaunay triangulation works well in practice. We also conducted extensive simulations of another localized routing protocol, FACE method [3]. The path found by this protocol is also reasonably good compared with previous one although it cannot guarantee a constant approximation on the length of the path traveled theoretically.