A location-based predictive route caching scheme for pure reactive Zone-based Routing Protocol in mobile ad hoc networks

In mobile ad hoc routing protocols, the control overhead and packet delivery delay are two major metrics for protocol performance. Reactive routing reduces control overhead as it finds routes on demand. On the other hand, it also prolongs data packet delivery delay compared to proactive routing protocols. To leverage this problem, route cache techniques are employed to balance control overhead and data packet delivery delay. In this paper, we propose a reactive location-based predictive caching scheme. The essence of this caching scheme lies in the neat integration of reactive location-based link availability prediction and time-based entry removal mechanism. The integration guarantees that the valid cached routes are never removed while stale routes are removed with the minimum cost of network resources. This caching scheme is embedded in the Reactive Zone-based Routing Protocol (RZRP) and evaluated by a simulation study. After accommodating social information from mobile end users, this mechanism can be well utilized in mobile social networks.