Formation and maintenance of self-organizing wireless networks

There are numerous military, commercial, and scientific applications for mobile wireless networks which are able to self-organize without recourse to any pre-existing infrastructure. We present the self-organizing wireless adaptive network (SWAN) protocol, a distributed networking protocol capable of managing such networks. The SWAN approach is based on dynamic topology management with power control, allowing it to adapt gradually to the changing environment instead of periodically discarding the network topology information and rebuilding the network from scratch. In addition, under SWAN control information is distributed instead of being concentrated in a "control phase". This provides significant savings when the acquisition times of the modems are high.