Rerouting Time and Queueing in Proactive Ad Hoc Networks

In a MANET network where nodes move frequently, the probability of connectivity loss between nodes might be high, and communication sessions may easily loose connectivity during transmission. The routing protocol is designed to find alternative paths in these situations. This rerouting takes time, and the latency is referred to as the rerouting time. This paper investigates the rerouting time of proactive routing protocols and shows that the rerouting time is considerably affected by queueing. Simulations and analysis are conducted to explore the problem. Finally, we propose a MAC-layer solution that reduces the rerouting time problems due to queueing. Simulations and analysis show that the solution is so effective that it eliminates the entire problem in many situations.