A model for designing scalable and efficient adaptive routing approaches in emergency Ad hoc communications

The self-organised nature of Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) makes it a suitable candidate for rescuer communication in disaster scenarios. This paper presents a model basis for supporting the design of hybrid and adaptive routing protocols such as ChaMeLeon (CML). A size threshold point between proactive and reactive routing approaches is established using a probabilistic analytical model using dimensional cardinalities of the effective operation area, called the critical area (CA). CML adapts its routing behaviour according to the network size in order to improve overall routing efficiency while preserving acceptable quality of service (QoS) relative to well known protocols that are Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing and Optimized Link Sate Routing (OLSR). These are also constituents of the reactive and proactive routing parts of CML respectively. The Evaluation section contains simulation results to support our analytical models and to compare the performance of CML with state of the art MANET routing protocols considering disaster scenarios with free space as well as obstacle prone environments also used to establish our models. We finally discuss the results and present some conclusions.