Routing Scalability in Multicore-Based Ad Hoc Networks

The integration of multicore processors into wireless mobile devices is creating new opportunities to enhance the speed and scalability of message routing in ad hoc networks. In this paper we study the impact of multicore technology on routing speed and node efficiency, and draw conclusions regarding the measures that should be taken to conserve energy and prolong the lifetime of a network. We formally define three metrics and use them for performance evaluation: Time-to-Destination (T2D), Average Routing Speedup (ARS), and Average-Node-Efficiency (ANE). The T2D metric is the time a message takes to travel to its destination in a loaded traffic network. ARS measures the average routing speed gained by a multicore-based network over a single-core based network, and ANE measures the average efficiency of a node, or the number of active cores. These benchmarks show that routing speedup in networks with multicore nodes increases linearly with the number of cores and significantly decrease traffic bottlenecks, while allowing more routings to be executed simultaneously. The average node efficiency, however, decreases linearly with the number of cores per node. Power-aware protocols and energy management techniques should therefore be developed to turn off the unused cores.