Title: Energy-efficient routing in mobile ad hoc networks: a cautionary tale

Authors: Thomas Kunz

Addresses: Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada

Abstract: Energy consumption is an important metric to consider in designing routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). In this article, we present some results from our work on integrating energy-efficiency aspects into a standard MANET routing protocol, optimised link state routing. We explore a range of protocol modifications and show that such changes can indeed increase the protocol performance in ideal scenarios (i.e. nodes having instantaneous and accurate knowledge of other nodes| residual energy levels) by as much as 30%. We then investigate the impact of nodes having only inaccurate/imprecise knowledge of the residual energy levels of other nodes, learning this information through protocol messages. The article shows that the achievable protocol performance is negatively affected by the imprecise information available. The loss in performance can be as high as 10%, emphasising the need to collect more precise routing-related information.

Keywords: energy efficiency; ideal knowledge; knowledge accuracy; MANET; mobile ad hoc networks; OLSR; optimised link state routing; energy-efficient routing; energy consumption; imprecise information; mobile networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAACS.2009.024284

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems, 2009 Vol.2 No.1, pp.70 - 86

Published online: 30 Mar 2009 *

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