NAV-based Load Aware Routing protocol in Wireless Mesh Networks

We propose a Network Allocation Vector (NAV) based Load Aware Routing (NA-LAR) protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks. NA-LAR is basically based on the Directional AODV (D-AODV)) to reduce the number of route request packet broadcast by using a restricted directional flooding technique. It also considers network conditions with NAV which indicates the busyness of the medium in IEEE 802.11, and it is used to find load balanced routing path. Thus, NA-LAR can find a less loaded route, and it leads to network performance improvement. Simulation results show that NA-LAR compared with D-AODV could increase the total throughput and reduce the end-to-end delay.