QoS routing for wireless ad hoc networks: problems, algorithms, and protocols

QoS routing plays an important role for providing QoS in wireless ad hoc networks. The goals of QoS routing are in general twofold: selecting routes with satisfied QoS requirement(s), and achieving global efficiency in resource utilization. In this article we first discuss some key design considerations in providing QoS routing support, and present a review of previous work addressing the issue of route selection subject to QoS constraint(s). We then devise an on-demand delay-constrained unicast routing protocol. Various strategies are employed in the protocol to reduce the communication overhead in acquiring cost-effective delay-constrained routes. Simulation results are used to verify our expectation of the high performance of the devised protocol. Finally, we discuss some possible future directions for providing efficient QoS routing support in wireless ad hoc networks.