Design and Realization of a Novel Header Compression Scheme for Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

IP header compression schemes offer a valuable measure for bandwidth preservation. Such schemes have been practically implemented in infrastructure-based IP networks for point-to-point links. However, minimal research and practical implementation efforts have been conducted in the direction of an IP header compression strategy that can meet the peculiar requirements of multi-hop ad hoc wireless networks. In this paper, we present a practically implemented multi-hop IP header compression scheme using the Robust Header Compression (ROHC) protocol suite. The scheme runs on a novel identifier (ID) based networking architecture, known as an ID-based ad hoc network (IDHOCNET). IDHOCNET additionally solves a number of bottlenecks of pure IP-based ad hoc networks that have emerged owing to IP address auto-configuration service, distributed naming and name resolution, and the role of an IP address as an identifier at the application layer. The proposed scheme was tested on a multi-hop test bed. The results show that the implemented scheme has better gain and requires only O (1) ROHC contexts.