A Location Based Routing Method for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Using location information to help routing is often proposed as a means to achieve scalability in large mobile ad-hoc networks. However, location based routing is difficult when there are holes in the network topology and nodes are mobile or frequently disconnect to save battery. Terminode routing, presented here, addresses these issues. It uses a combination of location based routing (Terminode Remote Routing, TRR), used when the destination is far, and link state routing (Terminode Local Routing, TLR), used when the destination is close. TRR uses anchored paths, a list of geographic points (not nodes) used as loose source routing information. Anchored paths are discovered and managed by sources, using one of two low overhead protocols: Friend Assisted Path Discovery and Geographical Map-based Path Discovery. Our simulation results show that terminode routing performs well in networks of various sizes. In smaller networks, the performance is comparable to MANET routing protocols. In larger networks that are not uniformly populated with nodes, terminode routing outperforms existing location-based or MANET routing protocols.