Load Balanced Routing Mechanisms for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Properties of mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) like dynamic topology and decentralized connectivity make routing a challenging task. Moreover, overloaded nodes may deplete their energy in forwarding others packets resulting in unstable network and performance degradation. In this paper we propose load-balancing schemes that distribute the traffic on the basis of three important metrics - residual battery capacity, average interface queue length and hop count along with the associated weight values. It helps to achieve load balancing and to extend the entire network lifetime. Simulation results show that the proposed load-balancing schemes significantly enhance the network performance and outperform one of the most prominent ad hoc routing protocols AODV and previously proposed load balanced ad hoc routing protocols including DLAR and LARA in terms of average delay, packet delivery fraction and jitter.