Energy efficient routing in mobile ad-hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc network-a revolutionary concept in itself, is a collection of wireless mobile nodes that are dynamically and arbitrarily located in a fashion that the interconnection between nodes are capable of changing in a continual basis. MANET has increasingly gained popularity, especially with the military and it is the aim and zeal of technology to upgrade its components and make them better and better. Mainly 4 or 5 types of conventional routing protocols of reactive, proactive or hybrid natures are used based on the requirements of the network. However power consumption in all these are rather high causing the transmission cost to increase. Thus, the quest for an energy efficient routing protocol in MANET to make its usage even better. In this paper we have tried to talk about newer energy efficient routing protocols. These take into consideration that in MANET, channel and energy capacity are scarce resources. Thus it is extremely important to enhance the lifetime of MANETs. Hence we have listed certain energy efficient protocols ideally suited for the current scenario.