An efficient location-aided routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) consists of a set of mobile hosts that do not need a base station. Due to the high mobility of nodes, the network topology of MANETs always changes. This makes it more difficult to find the routes that message packets use when they are routed. In this paper, we propose an improved location-aided routing (ILAR) scheme to improve the efficiency of location-aided routing (LAR) scheme by using the global positioning system (GPS). In this scheme, we first decide a baseline, which is the line between the source node and the destination node, for route discovery. The request packet is broadcasted in a request zone based on the baseline to determine the next broadcasting node. The neighboring node with the shortest distance to the baseline is chosen as the next broadcasting node. Thus, we can find a better routing path than LAR scheme to reduce the network overhead. We also propose a partial reconstruction process that maintains a routing path. When a node on a routing path finds that a link is broken, the node starts the process of routing maintenance. Finally, experimental results show that the proposed ILAR scheme outperforms LAR scheme.