HHLS: A hybrid routing technique for VANETs

In this paper, we propose a combination between a routing protocol Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (GPSR) and Hierarchical Location Service (HLS) that we denote Hybrid Hierarchical Location Service (HHLS). HLS and GPSR used to be combined in the original work with a direct method, i.e. GPRS takes care of routing packets and HLS is called to get the destination position when the target node position is not known or is not fresh enough. When a destination is quite far away from the sender, the exact position of the target is calculated, and an extra overhead is generated from sender to receiver. Our main purpose is to reduce this overhead in HHLS. We suggest to proceed as follows: when a packet has to be sent to the destination, it will be sent directly to the former position of the target instead of requesting for the exact position. When the packet is approaching the former position, the exact position request is then sent. We have proposed a patch over the NS-2 simulator for HHLS according to our proposal. We have conducted experimentations which show promising results in terms of latency, packet delivery rate and overhead.