An on-demand minimum energy routing protocol for a wireless ad hoc network

A minimum energy routing protocol reduces the energy consumption of the nodes in a wireless ad hoc network by routing packets on routes that consume the minimum amount of energy to get the packets to their destination. This paper identifies the necessary features of an on-demand minimum energy routing protocol and suggests mechanisms for their implementation. We highlight the importance of efficient caching techniques to store the minimum energy route information and propose the use of an 'energy aware' link cache for storing this information. We compare the performance of an on-demand minimum energy routing protocol in terms of energy savings with an existing on-demand ad hoc routing protocol via simulation. We discuss the implementation of Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol using the Click modular router on a real life test-bed consisting of laptops and wireless Ethernet cards. Finally we describe the modifications we have made to the DSR router to make it energy aware.