Mobility Aware Hybrid Routing protocol for mobile ad hoc network

Abstract

Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) require a dynamic and efficient routing protocol that can responds quickly to network topology changes. Ad hoc routing protocols for MANETs are classified into: (a) proactive, (b) reactive and (c) hybrid approaches. In general, proactive routing is more suitable for a stationary network, while reactive routing is better for a mobile network with a high mobility. In many applications, a node in a MANET is mobile, yet it can also fluctuate between being mobile and being stationary. Thus, a hybrid routing approach with the ability to adapt according to the node mobility could improve the performance of MANETs. However, existing hybrid protocols (e.g. the Tooska scheme) do not consider node mobility. Therefore, this paper, proposes a Mobility-Aware Hybrid Routing (MAHR) approach for MANETs, which varies its routing between a reactive and proactive approach according to the node mobility. While the proposed scheme is similar to the Tooska scheme, it selects the core nodes based on the ratio of changing neighbor nodes to take account of the node mobility. Simulation results show that the proposed routing protocol outperformed three other routing protocols, i.e., the Tooska scheme, AODV, and OLSR.