Enhancing AODV protocol using QoS constraints to improve routing in Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks

Cloud computing, mobility and the Internet of Things require more spectrum for data transmission. Unfortunately, the spectrum is a scarce resource, which is underutilized by licensed users while the unlicensed spectrum is overcrowded. Cognitive radio technology has emerged as a promising solution to the underutilization of the spectrum. This study aims to mitigate the routing problem by using the QoS constraints to enhance the AODV protocol. Based on related work, this study determines how the factors affecting QoS can be addressed. The study uses QoS constraints to enhance the performance of AODV and then evaluate its effectiveness in improving the routing problem. The proposed scheme Q-AODV is compared to an existing routing scheme, the CAODV. Simulations are conducted using NS 2. Results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the CAODV protocol in terms of throughput, delay, and packet delivery ratio. The scheme managed to address the routing problem and has gracefully reduced the factors affecting QoS. The drawback of the proposed scheme is that after a link break there is no mechanism to repair broken links something which is being addressed in our future work.