Bio-Inspired Energy-Efficient and Scalable Design Approaches to Mobile Adhoc and Wireless Sensor Networks

Tactical wireless communication networks, which include mobile ad hoc networks as well as wireless sensor networks, are intrinsically dynamic, unreliable, and large scale. Capabilities such as self-configuration, resilience, and rapid recovery from disruptions are critical to their successful operation. These pose difficult design challenges, which cannot be solved using conventional design approaches, as they assume that the system is composed of reliable components with relatively small scale. Approaches that are based on central or explicit control over the network introduce a single point of failure and diminish the ability of the network to adapt. The phenomenon of self-organization is pervasive in nature, where biological organisms efficiently self-organize to carry out a wide diversity of functions, which enjoy desired properties of emergent behavior, scalability and optimality. The objective of this SBIR effort is to design, model, analyze, and implement protocols for tactical wireless communication networks that are derived from biological organisms behavior. In Phase I, we designed, modeled, and analyzed bio-inspired energy-efficient and scalable protocols for tactical wireless communication networks. In Phase II, the performance of the designed protocols/capabilities in terms of scalability, energy efficiency, latency, control overhead, and route reconfiguration time will be evaluated via QualNet simulation and emulation capabilities.