A Connection Entropy-based Multi-Rate Routing Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This paper introduces a new approach to modeling relative distance among nodes under a variety of communication rates, due to node's mobility in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). When mobile nodes move to another location, the relative distance of communicating nodes will directly affect the data rate of transmission. The larger the distance between two communicating nodes is, the lower the rate that they can use for transferring data will be. The connection certainty of a link also changes because a node may move closer to or farther away out of the communication range of other nodes. Therefore, the stability of a route is related to connection entropy. Taking into account these issues, this paper proposes a new routing metric for MANETs. The new metric considers both link weight and route stability based on connection entropy. The problem of determining the best route is subsequently formulated as the minimization of an object function formed as a linear combination of the link weight and the connection uncertainty of that link. The simulation results show that the proposed routing metric improves end-to-end throughput and reduces the percentage of link breakages and route reparations.