RBR: refinement-based route maintenance protocol in wireless ad hoc networks

In this paper, we propose a so-called refinement-based routing protocol that uses dynamic route redirection to provide proactive route selection and maintenance to on-demand routing algorithms so that the benefits of both types of routing algorithms can be combined and their drawbacks minimized. This refinement-based routing protocol includes two major mechanisms. The first is designed to prevent path-breaks by introducing a proper redirector in the vicinity of a potential link-break to bypass the weak link. The second efficiently adds automatic route shortening benefits, which can be done with normal proactive routing algorithms, to on-demand routing algorithms without periodically exchanging routing messages. Using information overheard from neighbors, the mechanism aggressively searches for a redirector that can shorten an on-going route. Experimental results demonstrate that adding the refinement-based routing protocol to AODV significantly reduces the number of broken paths and the end-to-end packet latency when compared with the pure on-demand routing protocol, AODV.