Connecting network partitions with location-assisted forwarding nodes in mobile ad hoc environments

A mobile ad hoc network consisting of a set of mobile nodes does not have any infrastructure support or central management. Data packets are routed by the mobile nodes in the network instead of base stations. Due to node mobility or geographical limitations, the ad hoc network topology may be partitioned. Data communication and information availability are thus affected. The disconnection problem makes a critical strike on ad hoc routing protocols because most protocols typically assume that the ad hoc network is always connected. This paper describes an approach to recovering the disconnected mobile ad hoc networks by deploying forwarding nodes. The forwarding nodes can automatically move to appropriate locations for interconnecting network partitions. The mechanism is distributed and self-organized and can be integrated with other routing protocols. The mechanism has been implemented in the network simulator ns-2. The simulation results show that the algorithm can efficiently improve information availability and recover network partitions.