Density-Based vs. Proximity-Based Anycast Routing for Mobile Networks

Abstract

Existing anycast routing protocols solely route packets to the closest group member. In this paper, we introduce density-based anycast routing, a new anycast routing strategy particularly suitable for unstable networks. Instead of routing packets merely on proximity information to the closest member, density-based anycast routing considers the number of available anycast group members for its routing decision. To evaluate the benefits of densitybased routing, we present a unified model to analyze pure proximitybased, pure density-based, as well as combined routing strategies. With an extensive simulation study, we then evaluate these strategies in multiple mobile scenarios. The two main results are that (i) density-based routing increases the probability of successful packet delivery when the network is unstable; and (ii) for particular mobile scenarios, density-based routing finds even shorter routes compared to traditional proximity-based routing. Finally, we discuss implementation issues and propose a solution to dynamically adapt the protocol’s parameter settings.