Using minimal source trees for on-demand routing in ad hoc networks

The on-demand routing protocols that have been proposed to date use either path information (e.g., DSR) or distance information (e.g., AODV). We present SOAR, an on-demand link-state protocol based on partial link-state information in which a wireless router communicates to its neighbors the link states of only those links in its source tree that belong to the paths it chooses to advertise for reaching destinations with which it has active flows, SOAR does not require periodic link-state advertisements when there are no link connectivity changes in the network. Simulation studies for several scenarios of node mobility and traffic flows reveal that SOAR performs more efficiently than DSR, which is one of the best performing on-demand routing approaches based on path information.