Improving hybrid ad hoc networks: The election of gateways

Abstract

The selection of an appropriate and stable route that enables suitable load balancing of Internet gateways is an important issue in hybrid mobile ad hoc networks. The variables employed to perform routing must ensure that no harm is caused that might degrade other network performance metrics such as delay and packet loss. Moreover, the effect of such routing must remain affordable, such as low losses or extra signaling messages. This paper proposes a new method, Steady Load Balancing Gateway Election, based on a fuzzy logic system to achieve this objective. The fuzzy system infers a new routing metric named cost that considers several networks performance variables to select the best gateway. To solve the problem of defining the fuzzy sets, they are optimized by a genetic algorithm whose fitness function also employs fuzzy logic and is designed with four network performance metrics. The promising results confirm that ad hoc networks are characterized by great uncertainty, so that the use of Computational Intelligence methods such as fuzzy logic or genetic algorithms is highly recommended.