Capacity Deficit in Mobile Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Due to Geographic Routing Overheads

Overheads incurred by routing protocols diminish the capacity available for relaying useful data over a mobile wireless ad hoc network. Discovering and understanding the lower bounds on the amount of protocol overhead incurred for routing data packets is important for development of efficient routing protocols, and for understanding the actual (effective) capacity available for network users. In this paper we use an information-theoretic approach for characterizing the minimum routing overheads of geographic routing in a mobile network. We formulate the minimum overhead problem as a rate-distortion problem. The formulation may be applied to networks with arbitrary traffic arrival and location service schemes. We evaluate lower bounds on the minimum overheads incurred for maintaining the location of destination nodes and consistent neighborhood information in terms of node mobility and packet arrival process. We also characterize the deficit caused by the routing overheads in the overall transport capacity of a mobile network.