Density-first Ad-hoc routing protocol for MANET

In recent years, Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) have received tremendous attention because of their self-configuration and self-maintenance capabilities. With open network architecture, frequent changes in topology, and shared wireless media, problems arise in the MANET routing protocol design. Such problems can include Broadcast Storm, stale route, faulty nodes, and latency. This paper proposes a new MANET routing protocol called Density-first Ad-hoc Routing Protocol (DARP). This new protocol considers node density, node mobility, and route length in order to select new routes with longer lifetimes and better throughput. Also, it uses a local self-recovery technique during the route maintenance phase in order to avoid the overhead and delay often caused by re-initiating route discovery. Our ns-2-based simulation shows that DARP’s performance is improved significantly in terms of throughput and routing overhead. Furthermore, DARP shows better scalability than other routing protocols in more demanding environments with high mobility and heavy traffic loads.