Reliable routing mechanism based on neighbor stability for MANET

One critical issue for routing in mobile Ad-hoc networks (MANETs) is how to select a reliable path that can last longer because mobility may cause frequent breakdown in radio links. A novel routing mechanism based on link lifetime estimation is proposed in this article. In this mechanism, the node's received signal strength is obtained continuously by using Newton interpolation polynomial, and by method of middle value and interception, the reference points are selected to estimate the link lifetime. With the constraint of link lifetime and hop counts, the source nodes set up the route hop by hop. The simulations show that link lifetime can be predicted regardless of mobility pattern. Moreover, the route discovery times and packet drop ratio can be reduced by the proposed mechanism, and thus improving the performance of MANETs.