MobileMAN: Design, Integration and Experimentation of cross-layer Mobile Multihop Ad Hoc Networks

In the previous article [1], via experimental studies, we have analyzed the performance of a TCP/IP layered architecture in multihop ad hoc networks. The experimental results point out that a legacy protocol stack does not operate efficiently in ad hoc networks, and cross layering is a promising approach to improve the performance. Cross layering opens a second phase in the ad hoc network design. In this article we present the cross-layer architecture and related protocols, developed in the MobileMAN project. By implementing a full prototype of this architecture, we show that it significantly outperforms a legacy TCP/IP layered architecture.