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Section: Application Domains
Wireless mobile ad hoc networks
Abstract. Mobile wireless networks have numerous applications in rescue and emergency operation, military tactical networking and in wireless high speed access to the internet.
A mobile ad hoc network is a network made of a collection of mobile nodes that gather spontaneously and communicate without requiring a pre-existing infrastructure. Of course a mobile ad hoc network use a wireless communication medium. They can be applied in various contexts:
The military context is the most obvious application of mobile ad hoc networks.
Soldiers invading a country won't susbscribe in advance to the local operator. On the reverse side, home units won't use their local operators firstly because they will likely be disrupted in the first hours of the conflict, and secondly because a wireless communication via an operator is not stealth enough to protect the data and the units. In Checheny, a general has been killed by a missile tracking the uplink signal of his portable phone.
The rescue context is halfway between military and civilian applications. In the september 11 disaster, most of the phone base station of the area have knocked out in less than twenty minutes. The remaining base stations were unable to operate because they could not work in ad hoc mode. The Wireless Emergency Rescue Team recommanded afterward that telecom operators should provide ad hoc mode for their infrastructure in order to operate in emergency situation in plain cooperation with police, firemen and hospital networks.
Mobile ad hoc network provide an enhanced coverage for high speed wireless access to the internet. The now very popular WLAN standard, WiFi, provides much larger capacity than mobile operator networks. Using a mobile ad hoc network around hot spots will offer high speed access to much larger community, including cars, busses, trains and pedestrians.