OLSR and MPR: mutual dependences and performances

Optimized Link State Routing protocol (OLSR) is one promising routing
protocol for mobile ad hoc networks. It recently reached the RFC step
and is still under improvement before becoming a standard. Since its
first design, OLSR has been associated with the Multipoint Relay (MPR)
protocol to reduce the flooding of OLSR topological messages. Many
papers has been written on possible promising solutions to improve OLSR
by replacing MPR by another topology control protocol, modifying MPR heuristic, or adapting OLSR to fast mobility and include security. But
few papers have dealt with the interactions between MPR and OLSR and
what makes them so particular. In this paper, we analyze OLSR
requirements and MPR properties and show that OLSR optimality is bound to the deep cooperation and interaction between MPR and OLSR. We
specifically exhibit the intrinsic properties of MPR absolutely
necessary to OLSR, and that cannot be found in any other topology
control protocol at this time. Conversely, we illustrate how OLSR is
able to correct MPR's drawbacks to reach its objective. We also show
that OLSR suffers from convergence problems that are commonly dealt with
adequate configuration parameters as suggested in the RFC3626. Finally,
we suggest that any attempt to alter any of the two protocols, or their
respective configuration parameters, will lead to suboptimal results.