On-demand routing using directional antennas in mobile ad hoc networks

We propose the use of directional antennas for improving the efficiency of on-demand protocols in mobile ad hoc networks. These protocols require that routes are found and maintained reactively, as required to handle the offered traffic. However, the process of searching for a route typically involves a network-wide flood of query packets, which consumes a large portion of the wireless bandwidth. We present two protocols that reduce the number of routing packets transmitted during the route discovery by limiting the query flood to a restricted region using directional transmissions. Performance evaluations of the protocols, obtained from computer simulations, are presented.