TORA! TORA! TORA!

By
Jansen Cohoon

Developing TORA
TORA was funded by the Army
Research Laboratory.
TORA is presently being transitioned
into the commercial sector by several
companies.
Boeing, Telecordia, NOVA Engineering
and the National Science Foundation.

Charac-TORA-istics
Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm
Use of Non-Shortest Path
On Demand Routing
Link Reversal Routing Family
Nodes Maintain One Hop Knowledge

Charac-TORA-istics
Highly Adaptable
Multiple Routes
Network Partition Detection
Destination Oriented
Directed Acyclic Graph

Modeling TORA
Network is modeled after a graph:
G=(N,L)
N is a finite set of nodes.
L is the set of links or edges.
Each node has an ID.
Nodes make use of omni directional
antenas

The 3 Routes of TORA

Route Creation: Establishing a set of
directed links from the source to
destination.
Route Maintenance: Changes in
topology cause routes to be
reestablished.
Route Erasure: Upon partition detection
routes are removed.

Controlling TORA
Three Control Packets:
Query (QRY) flooded through network
to establish routes.
Update (UPD) propagates back if route
exists and re-orient route structure
Clear (CLR) flooded through network to
erase invalid routes.

How High is TORA?

TORA maintains its DAG by a quintuple.
H = (t, oid, r, d, i)
H = Height
t = time
oid = orignating node ID
r = reflection bit; 0 = original, 1 =
reflected
d = ordering integer
i = nodes ID

Still High on TORA

The height of the nodes determines the
path for a given destination.
The destination has a height
(0,0,0,0,dest).
If the nodes are kept in order the data
will flow downstream to the destination.
(t, oid, r) is the reference level.
(d, i) is the offset

Route Creation

Route Creation
A node will create a route if it has no
downstream neighbors to the
destination.
It will the set is Route Required (RR)
flag and broadcast a QRY packet.
The QRY packet contains the
destination node.
An UPD packet will be used to reply.

Upon Receiving a QRY

IF RR flag is set, does not forward and
discard QRY packet.
IF RR flag not set and has no downstream
neighbors, it sets RR and rebroadcasts QRY.
If node has at least 1 downstream neighbor
and the height for that link is NULL (-,-,-,-,i) it
sets its height to the minimum of its
neighbors, increments its d value and
broadcasts an update.

Upon Receiving a QRY

Continued.
If the node has a downstream neighbor
and its height is non-Null and the RR
flag is set. It will discard the UPD
packet.
If the RR flag is not set it will send an
update packet.

Upon Receiving an UPD

If the reflection bit of the neighbors
height is not set and its route required
flag is set it sets its height for the
destination to that of its neighbors but
increments d by one. It then deletes the
RR flag and sends an UPD message to
the neighbors, so they may route
through it.

Upon Receiving an UPD

Continued.
If the neighbors route is not valid or the
RR flag was unset, the node only
updates the entry of the neighbors node
in its table.

Route Creation In Action

Route Creation In Action

Route Creation In Action

Route Creation In Action

Route Creation In Action

Route Creation In Action

Route Maintenance

Route Maintenance

Maintenance Cases: 1
1 Generate: The node has lost its last
downstream link due to a failure. The
node defines a new "reference level", so
it sets oid (originator id) to its node id
and t to the time of the failure. This is
done only if the node has upstream
neighbors. If not it sets its height to
NULL.

Maintenance Cases: 2
2 Propagate: The node has no more
downstream link due to a link reversal
following the receipt of an update packet and
the reference levels (t,oid,r) of its neighbors
are not equal. The node then propagates the
references level of its highest neighbor and
sets the offset to a value which is lower (-1)
than the offset of all its neighbors with the
maximum level.

Maintenance Cases: 3
3 Reflect: The node has lost its
downstream links due to a link reversal
following the receipt of an update
packet and the reference heights of the
neighbors of the node are equal with the
reflection bit not set. The node then
reflects back the reference height by
setting the reflection bit. It's d value is
set to 0.

Maintenance Cases: 4
4 Detect: The node has lost its
downstream links due to a link reversal
following the receipt of an update
packet and the reference heights of the
neighbors of the node are equal with the
reflection bit set. This means that the
node has detected a partition and
begins the route erasure procedure.
The height values are set to NULL.

Maintenance Cases: 5
5 Generate: The node has lost its last downstream link due to a
link reversal following the receipt of an update packet and the
reference heights of all the neighbors are equal with the
reflection bit set and the oid of the neighbors heights isn't the
node's id. The node then sets t to the time of the link failure and
sets oid to its own id. The d value is set to 0. This means that
the link failure required no reaction. The node experienced a link
failure between the time it propagated a higher reference (from
someone else) and the time this level got reflected from a place
further away in the network. Because the node didn't define the
new reference level itself this is not necessarily an indication of
a partitioning of the network. So the node simply defines a new
higher reference level with the time of the link failure.

Route Maintenance In
Action

Route Maintenance In
Action

Route Maintenance In
Action

Route Maintenance In
Action

Route Maintenance In
Action

Route Maintenance In
Action

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

F to G fails, partitioning G from the rest of the network

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

F starts a new reference level, and sends UPD with with

oid=F and t = time of link failure

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

The links D-F and E-F reverse. Node D propagates the

reference level.

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

E reflects reference level from F. Reference heights of

the neighbors are equal with the reflection bit not set.
E sets the reflection bit and sets offset to 0. Node C
propagates new reference level.

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

Node A propagates reference level.

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

Node B reflects the reference level, because all of its

neighbors have the same reference height and their
reflection bits are not set. The offset is set to 0 to
make node B now be higher than its neighbors and
the reflection bit is set.

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

Links are now reversed in the opposite direction, but the

reflection bit is set.

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

Network Partition and

Route Erasure

Node D propagates the reference level the reference heights of the

neighbors of F are equal, but the reflection bit is set. F has detected
a partition and sets its height to NULL indicating that the route to
the destination no longer exists. The route erase protocol is
triggered.

Route Erasure
When a node has detected a partition it sets its
height and the heights of all its neighbors for the
destination in its table to NULL and it issues a CLR
packet. The CLR packet consists of the reflected
reference level (t,oid,1) and the destination id.
If a node receives a CLR packet and the reference
level matches its own reference level it sets all
heights of the neighbors and its own for the
destination to NULL and broadcasts the CLR packet.
If the reference level doesn't match its own it just sets
the heights of the neighbors its table matching the
reflected reference level to NULL and updates their
link status (->undirected).

Conclusion
TORA is GREAT for MANET!
It is very applicable to Tactical
Networks.

References
L. P. Burka, Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm,
SECAN-LAB, http://wiki.uni.lu/secan-lab/TemporallyOrdered+Routing+Algorithm. (current Feb. 21, 2005).
Vincent D. Parka and M. Scott Corson, A Highly
Adaptive Distributed Routing Algorithm for Mobile
Wireless Networks, Naval Research Laboratory,
1997.