Cooperative path establishment for robust connectivity in mobile ad-hoc networks

The paper focuses on the issue of path establishment in Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) suitable for challenging environments where traditional network designs underperform. The goal is to define, specify, design and assess solutions that can provide adequate-quality of service to specific missions that have to be deployed in hostile environments that imply propagation-harsh and otherwise unpredictable conditions. The main metrics of such technology-disruptive ad-hoc networking are reliability (resilience, robustness) and sufficient throughput to support applications that are time-critical and delay-sensitive (push-to-talk voice, streaming video), on top of classic data applications. The paper will show advanced autonomous cooperative path establishment techniques and will demonstrate their performance benefits and their suitability to support delay sensitive applications over dynamically changing MANET topologies.