Proactive routing overhead in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

This paper presents an analytical model for quantifying the control overhead of proactive routing protocols in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). In particular, the lower bound on the routing overhead of a generic proactive routing protocol for MANETs with a flat structure is introduced. This routing overhead is characterized as a function of network mobility and data traffic load. The final result shows the minimum communication bandwidth in bits necessary to facilitate routing for proactive routing protocols. In addition, a numerical model for determining the optimal network topology update interval is derived to minimize the routing overhead depending on network mobility. This paper provides a valuable insight into the fundamental limits of routing performance in MANETs in response to mobility.