Smart Protocol for Communication in Mobile Ad Hoc Network of Vehicles

In this paper we present a smart protocol for intervehicle communication based on mobile ad hoc networks. The protocol is capable of handling both broadcast as well as unicast messages for a particular node. The protocol implements controlled flooding in an efficient manner to reduce unnecessary communication overheads. The protocol avoids forming clusters and clusterheads by using the concept of selective forwarding. Thus it gets the advantages related to clusters without actually forming one itself. It effectively deals with blind flooding by introducing a comprehensive retransmission time delay in the nodes. This retransmission delay favors the nodes in the direction of the destination and restricts other nodes from transmitting the same message again. The proposed protocol avoids the use of routing tables which have a short life in mobile networks needing frequent updates. Instead the protocol relies on directing the messages to geographic locations which are forwarded by any available intermediary nodes. The protocol also provides techniques for handling network fragmentation which is a frequent problem for the vehicular networks. The protocol is implemented using NS2 and simulation results are compared with AODV.