A QoS Ad Hoc On Demand Multi-path Distance Vector Routing Protocol (QAOMDV) over a Distributed TDMA MAC Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks

This paper focuses on the problem of QoS multi-path in wireless ad hoc networks. An integration of a novel multi-path routing protocol and a distributed Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) MAC protocol is proposed. The MAC considered is called Evolutionary TDMA (E-TDMA) and the analysed multi-path routing protocol is the Ad Hoc On Demand multi-path Distance Vector (AOMDV) protocol. The integrated approach multi-path routing and TDMA MAC protocol offers advantages typical of multi-path routing, in terms of reduced route discovery frequency and increased throughput. The advantage of the E-TDMA MAC is a higher throughput in comparison with the standard IEEE 802.11 MAC and the reduction of the contention interference due to the slot reservation mechanism for high data traffic. Two schemes to build the multi-route are exploited. The simulation results show the benefits of the integrated routing-MAC protocol in terms of reduced overhead, higher throughput, and reduced end-to-end delay for a scenario with very high mobility and heavy data traffic. Key-words: Multi-path routing, TDMA, QAOMDV, E-TDMA MAC, QoS, Ad-hoc networks.