A New Reactive Routing Algorithm to Improve Capacity and Average End-to-End Delay in MANETs

Abstract

Delay and capacity are two important parameters in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Increasing the network capacity almost leads to delay increases, as well. Many recent works have been conducted to achieve both desirable capacity and delay, simultaneously. To achieve such aim, this study proposes a new reactive routing algorithm. This algorithm modifies multi-hop Dynamic Virtual Router algorithm to overcome the performance limits of MANETs. Mobility metrics are defined to estimate the mobility degree of the nodes’ neighborhood. A new route setup process is defined; using the estimated information and a local repair mechanism is also introduced in the new proposed algorithm. In this local repair mechanism, a new route is sought between the repairing node and its next hop on the communication path. Simulation study shows that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the network performance, including throughput and delay; so that, the increasing overhead is not remarkable considering the great performance improvement of the algorithm. © 2014, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.