Intelligent load balancing in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

On demand ad hoc routing protocols such as AODV and DSR do not look for new routes unless there is a change in the network topology. In scenarios where same intermediate node is used for longer time, this behavior may cause the traffic concentration on few intermediate nodes resulting in large latency and depletion of battery power at the nodes. To overcome this problem, a load balancing algorithm is proposed in this thesis. Each node forwards its residual energy information to all its neighbor nodes using reserved fields in the hello packets. Each node calculates a desirability metric, for each of its neighbor, based on the neighbor‟s energy information and the available bandwidth towards it. The choice of a particular route depends upon the desirability metric of the next hop. The proposed scheme is independent of the underlying routing protocol however the routing protocol should be able to save multiple routes to a destination and be able to put and retrieve the energy information to and from the hello messages.