EBCR - A Routing Approach for Radio Standard Spanning Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

In this paper, a new Energy-Balanced, Cooperative Routing approach (EBCR) for radio standard spanning mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANETs) will be introduced and evaluated. Past research approaches are limited to the usage in homogeneous topologies on basis of a unique radio standard. The proposed reactive EBCR provides an efficient routing of data in heterogeneous multi-standard network topologies. In addition to an improved reachability, a primary objective is to balance the overall power consumption in each operating node to prolong the lifetime of the whole topology. Instead of using static cost factors for the route path calculation, EBCR integrates a dynamic cost vector for the handling and processing of a data packet. This includes parameters like the required field strength for the data transmission and the node’s current energy level to calculate the cooperative, optimal route path. Thereby, EBCR operates only on the basis of local network information. For evaluating the conceptual advantages of this approach, multiple scenarios with static and highdynamic network topologies have been analysed in a dedicated simulation environment. The simulation results verify the significant improvements in the topology lifetime and the reachability up to 15%.