[Olsr-users] OLSR in Android...a good idea?

Robert Keyes (spam-protected)
Thu Sep 16 19:32:52 CEST 2010



On Wed, 15 Sep 2010, Henning Rogge wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 20:01, Robert Keyes <(spam-protected)> wrote:
>> I am going to put OLSR on my G1 at some point.
>>
>> But I wonder if OLSR is really the most appropriate mesh protocol to be
>> used on a portable device. Portability would seem to indicate frequent
>> change of routing, and the updates required might swamp a network. I
>> haven't tried this yet, and I imagine there is some network tuning which
>> could help minimize this, but a portable node joining a large network of
>> stationary nodes may not be so welcome.
> There should be some optimizations for a combined "fixed/mobile" mesh.
> For example the mesh should prefer nodes with "infinite" powersupply
> for routes and flooding routing data.
>
> The best case would be if the wireless node is not needed for
> routing/flooding at all. In this case it does not need to send TCs, so
> it doesn't really congest the network that much.

Perhaps nodes running on Android should have some sort of 'portable' flag 
they send to identify themselves, until the rest of the work is done in 
optimizing for portable nodes.

Since the node's own idea of its 'predicted availability' might have a 
wide variety of estimations, represented by numbers that may be real 
rather than discrete, perhaps these is a simple method to handle based 
upon algorithm. I'll have to give this some more thought.

The idea of power supply for transmission is an important one. Even nodes 
which are fixed may be battery powered, and when their batteries are low 
other routes should have preference. But such nodes would have a fixed 
location; so there should be a different attribute to indicate 
power-limited versus fixed/mobile location. A mobile node located in a car 
is one which has an unlimited power supply but is not in a fixed location, 
where as when it is parked, its power supply becomes limited and its 
location becomes fixed. A cellphone becomes stationary and of uniited 
power when it is plugged into its charger.

What I have said above is not an argument or thesis but just my thinking 
aloud, so to speak, thinking while typing.

I have much of the equipment needed to set up a testbed here in Boston, 
but so few people interested in mesh wifi enough to give their time. What 
a shame.




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