An unaided directional neighbor discovery algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks

Considering that in mobile ad hoc networks, smart antennas or directional antennas can be utilized to improve the networks' capacity and security and achieve the energy consumption reduction, this paper presents an unaided directional neighbor discovery (UDND) algorithm for the mobile ad hoc networks with the directional antennas being used for data transmission and reception. With the UDND algorithm, the neighbors that can be reached only when both the transmission and reception are directional can be discovered independently without the requirement of synchronization or position information of the networks. Based on the relation of the communication range of the directional transmission and omni-directional reception (DTOR) mode to that of the directional transmission and reception (DTR) mode, the new algorithm can discover neighbors of the directional transmission and reception (DTR) mode by using the DTOR mode neighbors that can be discovered very easily. It integrates directional neighbor discovery with routing, thus reducing the overhead and energy consumption. The proposed algorithm is verified through simulations.