Fuzzy based load and energy aware multipath routing for mobile ad hoc networks

Routing is a challenging task in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) due to their dynamic topology and lack of central administration. As a consequence of un-predictable topology changes of such networks, routing protocols employed need to accurately capture the delay, load, available bandwidth and residual node energy at various locations of the network for effective energy and load balancing. This paper presents a fuzzy logic based scheme that ensures delay, load and energy aware routing to avoid congestion and minimise end-to-end delay in MANETs. In the proposed approach, forwarding delay, average load, available bandwidth and residual battery energy at a mobile node are given as inputs to a fuzzy inference engine to determine the traffic distribution possibility from that node based on the given fuzzy rules. Based on the output from the fuzzy system, traffic is distributed over fail-safe multiple routes to reduce the load at a congested node. Through simulation results, we show that our approach reduces end-to-end delay, packet drop and average energy consumption and increases packet delivery ratio for constant bit rate (CBR) traffic when compared with the popular Ad hoc On-demand Multipath Distance Vector (AOMDV) routing protocol

Models and Protocols for Resource Optimization in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks are built on a mix of fixed and mobile nodes interconnected via wireless links to form a multihop ad hoc network. An emerging application area for wireless mesh networks is their evolution into a converged infrastructure used to share and extend, to mobile users, the wireless Internet connectivity of sparsely deployed fixed lines with heterogeneous capacity, ranging from ISP-owned broadband links to subscriber owned low-speed connections. In this thesis we address different key research issues for this networking scenario. First, we propose an analytical predictive tool, developing a queuing network model capable of predicting the network capacity and we use it in a load aware routing protocol in order to provide, to the end users, a quality of service based on the throughput. We then extend the queuing network model and introduce a multi-class queuing network model to predict analytically the average end-to-end packet delay of the traffic flows among the mobile end users and the Internet. The analytical models are validated against simulation. Second, we propose an address auto-configuration solution to extend the coverage of a wireless mesh network by interconnecting it to a mobile ad hoc network in a transparent way for the infrastructure network (i.e., the legacy Internet interconnected to the wireless mesh network). Third, we implement two real testbed prototypes of the proposed solutions as a proof-of-concept, both for the load aware routing protocol and the auto-configuration protocol. Finally we discuss the issues related to the adoption of ad hoc networking technologies to address the fragility of our communication infrastructure and to build the next generation of dependable, secure and rapidly deployable communications infrastructures

Evaluation of available bandwidth as a routing metric for delay-sensitive IEEE 802.15.4-based ad-hoc networks

In this paper, we evaluate available bandwidth as a routing metric for IEEE 802.15.4-based ad-hoc networks. The available bandwidth on a data forwarding path is an approximation of the forwarding path’s residual data relaying capacity. High available bandwidth on a data forwarding path implies low data traffic load on the path, therefore data flows may experience low delay and high packet delivery ratio (PDR). Our aim is to evaluate available bandwidth as a routing metric. We present different available-bandwidth-based routing protocols for IEEE 802.15.40-based networks, namely: end-to-end available-bandwidth-based routing protocol (ABR), available bandwidth and contention-aware routing protocol (ABCR), and shortest hop-count and available-bandwidth-based opportunistic routing protocol (ABOR). Moreover, we also present variants of ABR and ABCR capable of distributing a flow’s data packets on multiple paths by maintaining the top K downstream nodes (the downstream nodes that advertised best data forwarding paths towards a sink node) corresponding to each sink node in a routing table. We focus on both single-sink and multi-sink networks. We performed extensive simulations, and the simulation results demonstrate that the available bandwidth routing metric shows better results when combined with a routing metric that helps to limit a data forwarding path’s length, i.e., shortest hop-count or intra-flow contention count. For multi-path data forwarding towards the same sink node, and at high traffic volumes, the available bandwidth metric demonstrates best performance when combined with the shortest hop-count routing metric

Performance evaluation of a new end-to-end traffic-aware routing in MANETs

There has been a lot of research effort on developing reactive routing algorithms for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) over the past few years. Most of these algorithms consider finding the shortest path from source to destination in building a route. However, this can lead to some network nodes being more overloaded than the others. In MANETs resources, such as node power and channel bandwidth are often at a premium and, therefore, it is important to optimise their use as much as possible. Consequently, a traffic-aware technique to distribute the load is very desirable in order to make good utilisation of nodes' resources. Therefore a number of end-to-end traffic aware techniques have been proposed for reactive routing protocols to deal with this challenging issue. In this paper we contribute to this research effort by proposing a new traffic aware technique that can overcome the limitations of the existing methods. Results from an extensive comparative evaluation show that the new technique has superior performance over similar existing end-to-end techniques in terms of the achieved throughput, end-to-end delay and routing overhead

Performance study of end-to-end traffic-aware routing

There has been a lot research effort on developing reactive routing algorithms for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) over the past few years. Most of these algorithms consider finding the shortest path from source to destination in building a route. However, this can lead to some network nodes being more overloaded than the others. In MANETs resources, such as node power and channel bandwidth are often at a premium and, therefore, it is important to optimise their use as much as possible. Consequently, a traffic-aware technique to distribute the load is very desirable in order to make good utilisation of nodes' resources. A number of traffic aware techniques have recently been proposed and can be classified into two categories: end-to-end and on-the-spot. The performance merits of the existing end-to-end traffic aware techniques have been analysed and compared against traditional routing algorithms. There has also been a performance comparison among the existing on-the-spot techniques. However, there has so far been no similar study that evaluates and compares the relative performance merits of end-to-end techniques. In this paper, we describe an extensive performance evaluation of two end-to-end techniques, based on degree of nodal activity and traffic density, using measures based on throughput, end-to-end delay and routing overhead