A new taxonomy of routing algorithms for wireless mobile ad hoc networks: The component approach

Over the past decade, wireless multihop ad hoe networks have received a tremendous amount of research focus, at the core of which lies the design problem for efficient routing algorithms to meet various scenarios and applications. The axiom, "One size doesn't fit all," continues to stand firmly to this day. In light of this, we introduce a new routing design concept - the component approach. We examine existing routing protocols and break them down into smaller building blocks, namely, routing components. The component analysis and classification results show that most routing protocols can be functionally decomposed into several basic routing components. This fact indicates that it is feasible to design a component-based routing (CBR) protocol. With a different realization for each basic routing component, it is expected that the routing behavior of CBR can be tailored to different application profiles and time-varying environment parameters at a reasonable cost.