Context-Aware Protocol Selection for Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Many protocols exist for supporting routing in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Selecting a particular protocol for an application or deployment environment involves evaluating many complex inter-dependent tradeoffs and can be an overwhelming task for an application designer. However, this decision can have a significant impact on the success of a system in terms of performance, cost, and responsiveness. This paper introduces a design tool that automates this evaluation process by controlling for environmental and usage properties of an intended deployment. This provides the foundation for a highly adaptive protocol suite that leverages the relative benefits of competing communication paradigms.