Mobility and Load aware Routing protocol for ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are very promising wireless technology and they offer wide range of possibilities for the future in terms of applications and coverage. Due to the complex nature of MANETS, their development processes face several challenges such as routing. Many routing algorithms have been proposed for MANETs. Reactive routing protocols are favored and popular in MANETs because they are more scalable and generate fewer overhead on the network. But, these protocols suffer from the broadcast storm problem due to the flooding strategy that is used in the route discovery process which causes redundancy, contention and collision problems. In order to reduce the effects of the broadcast problem, a Mobility and Load aware Routing scheme (MLR) is proposed in this paper. MLR controls the flooding process by restricting the rebroadcast messages on the slow speed and low loaded nodes. Each node decides whether to forward or drop the received request message based on several factors (such as speed and routing load) using Markovian Decision Process tool. Simulation results show that MLR scheme outperforms the original AODV protocol in terms of normalized routing load and average end-to-end delay.