Efficient available bandwidth estimation in ad hoc networks

We present a method to estimate dynamically the available bandwidth of a node with its neighboring nodes being taken into account. In wireless networks, each node can overhear the frames sent by its neighboring nodes and get some important information from their headers. We implement our method by maintaining an active neighbor table (ANT) in each node. The ANT contains the information of all neighboring nodes that are contending a channel. The throughput of each active neighboring node can be obtained based on the transmission history. We can then know how much bandwidth is available for the considered node. Simulation results show that our estimation of available bandwidth is very accurate.