Abstract

This report represents a research project and implementation project called ‘A Communication Layer for Distributed Decision Making’, which was initiated in January 2004 at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. It aims at how messages are being routed from a source to a destination in a wireless ad hoc network. Project supervisor is professor dr. drs. L.J.M. Rothkrantz and Paul Kaufmann, student at the University of Rotterdam, carries out research and implementation work.
Ten years ago PDA’s were introduced. With this technology it is possible to communicate directly to other PDA’s instead of using a centralized network. It can be applied in different professions for example in medical emergency, police and fire fighters etc. But there is not yet a optimal routing algorithm to distribute information to other PDA’s.
This thesis contains a result of a research of existing routing algorithms and an implementation of a routing algorithm in an ad hoc network. Different routing algorithms have been investigated such as ARA, DSR and ZRP. ARA proved to be the most promising in comparison with other routing protocols, but some adjustments have been made to ensure that data has arrived at the destination. However ARA is not superior to other routing protocols.
An implementation has been made to see what will happen if this ARA routing algorithm is applied in the real life. The design and implementation can be found in this thesis. Eventually the results of the simulation will be presented.