A MinMax Routing Algorithm for Long Life Route Selection in MANETs

In this paper, the stable or long life route selection problem in Mobile Ad-hoc Wireless Networks (MANETs) is addressed. The objective is to develop an on demand routing scheme to find a long life route between a given source and destination assuming each node has an estimate of neighbors’ mobilities. Formulating the problem as a MinMax optimization one, we use a dynamic programming based scheme for route selection. The proposed MinMax Routing Algorithm (MRA) is an on demand routing that can be implemented in the traditional Ad-hoc On- Demand Distance Vector (AODV) structure. In the route request phase, tail subproblems of finding the most stable route from the source to each intermediate node are solved. MRA finds the most stable route in the route reply phase deploying the solutions of these subproblems. Simulation results using NS2 simulator are provided to show the performance of MRA compared to AODV and stable AODV schemes in terms of the lifetime of selected route and routing overhead. Also, the tradeoff between the route discovery delay and finding more stable routes is discussed and justified by simulations.