Header compression for ad-hoc networks

The army is focusing on mobile ad-hoc communications for squad-level operations, sensor systems, and other networks throughout the tactical battle space. The widespread use of real-time voice and data applications characterized by smaller packet payloads, coupled with the eventual deployment of Ipv6 will lead to larger header overhead and a corresponding reduction in bandwidth efficiency. This reduction in bandwidth efficiency can be mitigated through the use of header compression techniques. Early work on header compression focused on slow serial links and wired networks with low error rates. More recent work has addressed loss and error propagation issues associated with high error rates and long round-trip times commonly found on wireless links. However, context initialization and control-message overhead issues associated with node mobility in ad-hoc networks have not been addressed. This paper presents an efficient header compression protocol for improved performance over mobile ad-hoc networks. The protocol uses a novel context initialization algorithm that leverages on routing information to minimize the overhead of frequent context initializations and routing messages during periods of high node mobility. It relies on a hybrid hop-by-hop/end-to-end header compression framework and uses stateless compression of control messages. The overall result is increased network capacity and line efficiency for ad-hoc environments encountered in tactical communications.