Ad hoc networking with directional antennas: a complete system solution

Abstract

In this paper, we present UDAAN ("utilizing directional antennas for ad hoc networking"), which is an interacting suite of modular network- and MAC-layer mechanisms for adaptive control of steered or switched antenna systems in an ad hoc network. UDAAN consists of several new mechanisms - a directional power-controlled MAC, neighbor discovery with beamforming, link characterization with directional antennas, proactive routing and forwarding all working cohesively to provide the first complete systems solution. We describe the development of a real-life ad hoc network testbed using UDAAN with switched directional antennas, and we discuss the lessons learned during field trials. High fidelity simulation results, using the same networking code as in the prototype, are also presented. For the range of parameters studied, our results show that UDAAN can produce up to a factor-of-10 improvement in throughput over omni-directional communications.