Energy efficiency of two virtual infrastructures for MANETs

In a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), virtual infrastructures are helpful to network operations. There are two popular virtual infrastructures for MANETs, square-based and hexagon-based. The square-based infrastructure divides the network area into squares of the same kind, and forwarding is done from one square to four neighboring squares. The hexagon-based divides the area into hexagons and forwarding is six-directional. These two virtual infrastructures can be used to aid routing and to save energy. However, no performance analysis or comparison has been made between them. This paper compares energy efficiency of these two virtual infrastructures analytically and numerically. Theoretical analysis shows, with the same transmission range, the six-direction forwarding covers 40% more area than the four-direction forwarding does in a single hop, and in 95% of the cases, the six-direction forwarding has a shorter path, therefore less energy consumption. The simulation results support the analysis.