Recently, many countries have been developing new protocols to improve the network performance of tactical ad hoc networks for implementing network-centric warfare. Geocasting, one of the protocols which can be applied in tactical networks, is an efficient protocol for disseminating tactical messages to every node within a specific geographical area. However, previous goecasting protocols have some constraints to apply those protocols in the battlefield because they have been researched for pure MANETs.
This thesis proposes several geocasting protocols for tactical ad hoc networks by considering the features of the tactical environments. First, the characteristics of the Tactical Internet and its environments are analyzed and an appropriate scheme is proposed for the Tactical Internet. Second, we develop jamming resilient geocasting reflecting whether nodes are aware of jamming attacks or not. Third, we suggest reliable dual path geocasting with two ACK schemes for guaranteeing packet deliveries in harsh environments such as dynamic topology changes, interference, obstacles etc. Last, a novel geocasting protocol which uses multi-interfaces and multi-channels efficiently is proposed by considering the recent development trends of equipment which has multiple interfaces and channels. Simulation results and theoretical analysis show that the proposed schemes enhance the performance under the tactical environments. We hope that the proposed protocols can be applied practically in tactical wireless networks for improving the operation effectiveness.
