International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC) Vol.2, No.5, September 2010 DOI : 10.5121/ijcnc.2010.2509 141 Binary Location-Search Based Scalable Routing Protocol For Ad Hoc Networks Anuradha Banerjee 1 and Paramartha Dutta 2 1 Department of Computer Applications, Kalyani Govt. Engg. College, Nadia, West Bengal, India anuradha79bn@gmail.com 2 Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India paramartha.dutta@gmail.com ABSTRACT In this article, we present a binary location search based scalable routing protocol (BinLS) for ad hoc networks. It is completely distributed and based on a location management strategy that keeps the overhead of routing packets significantly small. The network is divided into some equal sized rectangular grid cells. Each node is assigned a home grid cell from where it starts its activity (transmission, reception and forwarding of messages). Nodes residing near the periphery of respective grid cells store information about all nodes present in the cell. Simulation results and detailed mathematical analysis of BinLS emphasize its merit compared to other schemes addressing the issue of scalability in ad hoc networks. KEYWORDS Ad hoc network, binary search, grid cell, routing, scalability. 1. INTRODUCTION Ad hoc wireless communication is a powerful technology allowing self-organizing connectivity and network services with no pre-existing infrastructure. Due to the fact that communication is not tied to any dedicated infrastructure, ad hoc networks are potentially more resilient and pervasive. This flexibility allows the networks to be deployed where there is no place to put wiring or the cost of installing infrastructure is prohibitive [1-10]. In case of a war or disaster where temporary network connectivity is needed, ad hoc networks are extremely advantageous. Additionally, ad hoc communication allows the network to grow with the number of people using it, not requiring any infrastructure to be built. Designing routing protocols for ad hoc networks is a challenge because of constantly changing topology triggered due to node mobility. Several authors have proposed different routing protocols for this environment [1-3] but very few of them have been evaluated with respect to their scalability. In order for large ad hoc networks to be practical, scalability problems must be solved and self-organizing distributed applications must be built. Among the existing scalable ad hoc routing protocols in literature, the mention-worthy names are : Landmark Routing [4-6], LANMAR [7], Scalable Routing Protocol [9], Hierarchical Grid Location Management (HGRID) [10], Grid Location Service (GLS) [11], Geographic Hashing Location Service (GHLS ) [11], Scalable Location Management Scheme For Large Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (SLALoM) [12] and Adaptive Demand-driven Location Service [13]. Scalable routing algorithms based on coordinate or landmark hierarchies were described by Tsuchiya in [4,5,6]. Landmark nodes self-organize themselves in a hierarchy, such that landmarks at a given level of hierarchy are approximately equal number of nodes apart. Each