Temporary infrastructures and Ah-Hoc networking for Mars explorers

In this thesis, we present a solution to improve communication for astronauts on extra- planetary expeditions. Our approach relies on the use of a temporary infrastructure and Ad-Hoc networking. The basic idea of the design is to dynamically position infrastructure nodes along their path to maintain a multi-hop path between the base station and the astronauts. Knowing when to place a temporary infrastructure is a challenge; this thesis proposes a solution to this with our backbone placement protocol. Having infrastructure nodes in an Ad-Hoc network amounts to a new sort of routing protocol for Ad-Hoc networks. We have investigated modifications to the basic PRoPHET routing protocol [1], in order to make it suitable for a network with temporary fixed infrastructure nodes. Our modifications address the low latency of PRoPHET by taking advantage of the fixed infrastructure nodes to quickly route messages. The proposed solution will be tested on hardware and real conditions during a real case scenario at the Mars Desert Research Station in the Utah desert. Unfortunately the simulation had to be postponed to mars 2021 due to the actual circumstances. In the mean time the proposed solutions have been evaluated with the omnet++ network simulator.