A new Geographic Multipath Protocol for Ad hoc Networks to reduce the Route Coupling phenomenon

Abstract

Mobile ad hoc networks are characterized by multi-hop wireless links, the absence of any cellular infrastructure, and frequent host mobility. Due to the dynamic nature of the network topology and the resource constraints, routing in MANETs is a very challenging task. The advantage of multi-path routing in MANETs is not obvious because the traffic along the multiple paths will interfere with each other. The effect of the route coupling in this environment can severely limit the gain offered by multipath routing strategies. Route coupling refers to the interference between two or more multiple paths located physically close enough to interfere with each other during data communication. In this paper, a new multipath distance-vector routing protocol, the Geographic Multipath Protocol (GMP) is proposed. This reactive algorithm computes alternate routes loop-free and zone-disjoint paths. In this way the paths are more independent of each other and the correlation-interference is very low. This permits a higher load balancing in the network and a major effectiveness of the multiple paths as far as the performance measures considered are concerned. Simulation experiments have shown that GMP outperforms unipath distance vector routing (AODV) and multipath distance vector routing.