A Scalable Routing Method for Irregular Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

We designed the terminode routing protoc ol with the objective to scale in large mobile ad hoc networks where the topology, or node distribution, is irregular. Our routing protocol is a combination of two protocols: Terminode Local Routing (TLR - to reach a close destination) and Terminode Remot e Routing (TRR - to send data to remote destinations). TRR is the key element to achieve scalability and reduce dependence on intermediate systems. Termin-ode routing uses anchored paths, a list of geographic points - that are not affected by nodes mobili ty -, rather than conventional paths of nodes. Terminode routing is completed by a low-overhead distributed method for discovering of anchored paths, and by a method for handling the inaccuracy of the location information. The presented simu-lation result s confirm that terminode routing performs well in different sized networks. In smaller ad hoc networks performance of terminode routing is comparable to MANET routing protocols. In larger networks, where MANET-like routing protocols break, terminode routing performs well; moreover, in larger networks that are not uniformly populated with nodes, terminode routing outperforms the existing location-based routing protocols.