Multi-path routing with load-aware metric for tactical ad hoc networks

To support reliable communication in tactical area networks, multi-path routing protocols can be utilized. Multipath routing protocol makes decisions to select primary route and alternative path by using routing metrics. Link quality routing metrics are popularly used for route selection but it may cause bottleneck and congestion problems. To overcome these problems, we can consider the traffic loads or congestion level into routing metric. In this paper we propose a load-aware routing metric which is based on Airtime link cost metric and combines traffic loads measured from MAC layer. To maximize load balancing effect, we utilize our proposed load-aware routing metric into a multipath routing protocol. The performance of the proposed metric is evaluated with the OPNET simulator and compared with other routing metrics.