Limiting Control Overheads Based on Link Stability for Improved Performance in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The widespread use of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) in many fields of applications has led to the continuous development of routing protocols which can perform well when deployed under different scenarios, as well as offer better Quality of Service (QoS) support. In this paper, we focus on how link stability is utilized as a metric to provide accurate feedback on the network. We then introduce two mechanisms – L-REQ (Limited forwarding of Route Requests) and L-REP (Limited initiation of Route Replies by intermediate nodes) – which make use of link stability to dynamically adapt the characteristic behaviour of existing protocols to achieve better network performance. The two adaptive schemes are then applied to the Ad Hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol as proof of concept.