A Multiple Disjoint Paths Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Sensor Networks

Due to the limited transmission range of wireless Ad Hoc network nodes, multiple hops are usually needed for a node to exchange information with any other node in the network. Thus routing is a crucial issue to the design of a MANET. In this paper, in accordance with the cross-layer design, the concept of Load Degree is introduced. Based on this metric Load Degree, a cross-layer design method that involves the MAC layer and the network layer is used to present a new routing protocol Load Degree Adaptive based Multi-Path OLSR (LDA-MPOLSR). In this protocol, MPRs (Multi-Point Relays) are used to obtain the network topology effectively, multiple Dijkstra algorithms are used to calculate multiple routes and to allocate the loads in terms of Load Degree of the path. Data transmission at the source is carried out through predetermined multiple paths (hence source routing). In this way, the nodal data in same destination can be distributed among various routes to reach a load balance. Our experiments have shown that LDA-MPOLSR can increase the utility of network resources and network throughput, improve robustness and reliability of the transmission service, and reduce the average transmission delay.