Channel-aware inter-cluster routing protocol for wireless ad-hoc networks exploiting network diversity

Routing in wireless ad hoc networks is greatly impacted by fading mechanisms such as path loss, lognormal shadowing and multipath fading. Despite this, most existing routing protocols typically consider only path loss while ignoring channel fading. We examine the efficacy of selection-based route path (SRP) and maximal-ratio route path (MRRP) network diversity schemes to combat the deleterious effects of fading inherent in the wireless medium. It is shown that the MRRP scheme provides better performance than the SRP scheme in terms of end-to-end outage probability, end-to-end average bit error rate (ABER) and power efficiency, but these benefits are realized at the expense of added complexity/resource overhead.