Optimization on OLSR protocol for reducing topology control packets

Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol is one of the most popular routing protocols for Mobile Ad hoc Networks. In OLSR, each node disseminates Topology Control (TC) packets throughout the ad hoc network. Individual nodes use this information to compute routes to all destinations. OLSR uses a Multipoint Relays (MPR) selection algorithm to reduce the TC packets overheads by marking subset of neighbors as MPR. In this paper, we propose an enhancement of the MPR selection algorithm which can take advantage of the original algorithm and introduces an additional decision parameter for choose MPR based on local databases of neighbor nodes extended to three hops. Our goal is to reduce further the number of TC packets. The new proposed scheme is used to select MPR by using a simple modification in OLSR protocol without additional signaling overheads. Implementation and simulation experiments with NS2 network simulator are presented to validate the stated goal. The results show that our enhanced OLSR variants outperform original OLSR in term of Number of TC packets, Routing Cost and Efficiency.