A simulation analysis on reactive route repair techniques for QoS sensitive applications in mobile ad hoc networks

One of the main challenges in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is the routing of calls to mobile users moving frequently. The major tasks of routing are to find a route to a terminal quickly, a process often called route discovery, and to maintain and repair the active routes, a process often called route maintenance/repair. Route maintenance/repair is a vital process as it deals with the salvage of calls when a link failure along a data route occurs. Data losses or failures in turn impact the end-to-end perceived quality of the application. We analyse through simulations various route repair techniques tailored for operation in MANETs and demonstrate the effects of relative node velocity, node density and communication range on the communication cost and scalability of a routing protocol.