Evaluating the limitations of and alternatives in beaconing

In position-based routing protocols, each node periodically transmits a short hello message (called beacon) to announce its presence and position. Receiving nodes list all known neighbor nodes with their position in the neighbor table and remove entries after they have failed to receive a beacon for a certain time from the corresponding node. In highly dynamic networks, the information stored in the neighbor table is often outdated and does no longer reflect the actual topology of the network causing retransmissions and rerouting that consume bandwidth and increase latency. An analysis on the possible impact of beacons due outdated and inaccurate neighbor tables is needed. We quantify by analytical and simulation means the possible performance loss and explore the limitations of position-based routing protocols which use beaconing. In highly mobile ad-hoc networks, the delay can increase by a factor of 20. The neighbor table inaccuracy is the main source of packet loss in uncongested networks. We propose and evaluate several concrete mechanisms to improve the accuracy of neighborhood information, e.g., by dynamic adaptation of the timer values when beacons are broadcasted, and show their effectiveness by extensive simulation.