Position Based Routing Algorithms for Ad Hoc Networks: a Taxonomy

Recent availability of small inexpensive low power GPS receivers and techniques for finding relative coordinates based on signal strengths, and the need for the design of power efficient and scalable networks, provided justification for applying position based routing methods in ad hoc networks. A number of such algorithms were developed in last few years, in addition to few basic methods proposed about fifteen years ago. This article surveys known routing methods, and provides their taxonomy in terms of a number of characteristics: loop-free behavior, distributed operation (localized, global or zonal), path strategy (single path, multi-path or flooding based), metrics used (hop count, power or cost), memorization (memoryless or memorizing past traffic), guaranteed delivery, scalability, and robustness (strategies to handle the position deviation due to the dynamicity of the network). We also briefly discuss relevant issues such as physical requirements, experimental design, location updates, QoS, congestion, scheduling node activity, topology construction, broadcasting and network capacity.