Timely Backup Source Routing for Multimedia Transport in Wireless Ad-hoc Network

Abstract

Routing protocols for wireless ad-hoc networks consider the path with the minimum number of hops as the optimal path to any given destination. However, this strategy does not balance the traffic load among the mobile network nodes, and may create congested areas. These congested areas greatly degrade the performance of the routing protocols. Prior research in routing for wireless ad hoc networks has shown that multi-path routing can enhance data delivery reliability and provide load balancing. Nevertheless, they obtain the backup route at the earlier moment based on the rough route load metric. In this paper, we propose a novel routing scheme that balances the load over the network by selecting a path based on traffic load at the opportune moment. We present a simulation study to demonstrate the significant improvements on robustness, responsiveness, and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.