Backbone Nodes Based Stable Routing for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Vinay Rishiwal 1, A. Kush 2, S. Verma 3

M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly1, Kurushetra University, Kurushetra2, IIITM, Gwalior3, India.
vianyrishiwal@gmail.com1, akush20@gmail.com2, sv.iiitm@gmail.com3

ABSTRACT

The recent trend in ad hoc network routing is the reactive on-demand philosophy
where routes are established only when required. Most of the protocols in this
category, however, use single route and do not utilize multiple alternate paths. This
paper proposes a scheme to improve existing on-demand routing protocols by
introducing the concept of stable backbone based node scheme in network
topologies scenario. The scheme establishes the multi paths without transmitting
any extra control message. It offers quick adaptation to distributed processing,
dynamic linking, less memory overhead and loop freedom at all times. The
Scheme has been incorporated with the AODV and DSR protocols. The extensive
simulation has been done for the performance evaluation; it clearly shows that the
scheme performs very well with increasing packet delivery for different network
scenarios.

Keywords: Ad hoc networks, Routing protocols, Backbone nodes, AODV, DSR.

1. INTRODUCTION proposed scheme is discussed. Section 4 provides

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET)[1] is a collection simulation details and results. Section 5 concludes the
of autonomous nodes, which communicate using paper.
wireless links without any fixed network infrastructure
and centralized administrative support. The main 2. PREVIOUS STUDY
application of mobile ad hoc network is in emergency The primary goal of routing protocol is to establish a
rescue operations and battle fields. correct and efficient route between a pair of nodes so
that messages may be delivered in a timely manner.
This paper addresses the problem of routing in mobile Routing protocols in Mobile ad hoc networks can be
ad hoc network. Since mobile nodes in mobile ad hoc classified in to two broad categories as
network can move randomly the topology may change 1 Proactive or Table driven
arbitrarily and frequently at unpredictable times. 2. Reactive or On demand
Transmission and reception parameters may also
impact the topology. So it is very difficult to find and The proactive or table driven protocols attempt to find
maintain an optimal route. The routing algorithm must a route continuously and maintain routing information
react quickly to topological changes. Due to dynamic from each node to every other node within the network,
nature of MANETs, the problem of broken path so that whenever data is needed to be transmitted
becomes prominent. Most of the existing protocols between two nodes, the route is already there. The
maintain single routing path and rediscover the new nodes are required to maintain consistent up-to-date
path whenever a link fails. A scheme has been routing information in one or more tables. DSDV[2],
proposed here which takes the advantage of stable WRP[3], CGSR[4] etc are the protocols of this
backbone nodes to provide the alternate path in case of category.
a link failure. This scheme can be incorporated in any
existing on demand routing protocol to improve the In Reactive approach routes are created only when
performance. The efforts in this paper has been made desired by the source node. When a node requires a
to incorporate the scheme on AODV and DSR. route to other node, it initiates a route discovery
process with in the network. All permutations are
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. The Section 2 examined and best possible route is established. The
deals with study on existing protocols. In section 3 the route is maintained by some route maintenance

1
procedure until either the destination becomes the backbone nodes can be 6, 8 and 9. These nodes are
inaccessible or until the route is no longer desired. nearer to the routing path nodes and can join the
AODV[5], DSR[6], LMR[7], TORA[8], and ABR[9] process any time.
etc are reactive protocols.
9
There is another category of routing protocols known 1 3
as hybrid routing which is a compromised approach S
between proactive and reactive approaches. Zone 2
Routing Protocol (ZRP) [10] is one of the most
important protocols under this category. This protocol
4
limits the scope of table driven procedure to a small D
area called zone. Outside the zone area reactive 6
approach is followed. Surveys of routing protocols for
5
8
ad hoc networks have been discussed in [1,11]
7
3. PROPOSED STUDY:
The proposed scheme takes care of on demand Figure 1: Stable route using Backbone Nodes.
routing along with a new concept of backbone nodes.
These backbone nodes help in reconstruction phase in AODV: For AODV the protocol description has been
the fast selection of new routes. Selection of backbone explained as: the protocol is divided into three phases.
nodes is made upon availability of nodes. Each route Route Request (REQ), Route Repair (REP) and Error
table has an entry for number of backbone nodes Phase (ERR).
attached to it. Whenever need for a new route arises in
case of route break, check for backbone nodes are 3.1 Route Construction (REQ) Phase
made, and a new route is established. Same process is
This scheme can be incorporated with reactive routing
repeated in route repair phase. Route tables are updated
protocols that build routes on demand via a query and
at each hello interval as in AODV with added entries
reply procedure. The scheme does not require any
for backbone nodes. Backbone nodes are nodes at the
modification to the AODV's RREQ (route request)
one hop distance from its neighbor. Backbone nodes
propagation process. In the scheme with Backbone
are those nodes which are not participating in route
nodes, when a source needs to initiate a data session to
process currently or nodes which enter the range of
a destination but does not have any route information,
transmission during routing process. As nodes are in
it searches a route by flooding a ROUTE REQUEST
random motion for a scenario, so there is every
(REQ) packet. Each REQ packet has a unique identifier
possibility that some nodes are idle and are in the
so that nodes can detect and drop duplicate packets. An
vicinity of the routing nodes. Whenever a break in the
Intermediate node with an active route, upon receiving
route phase occurs due to movement of participant
a no duplicate REQ, records the previous hop and the
node, node damage or for other reasons; theses idle
source node information in its route table. It then
nodes which have been termed as backbone nodes take
broadcasts the packet or sends back a ROUTE REPLY
care of the process and start routing. The whole process
(REP) packet to the source if it has an active route to
becomes fast and more packet delivery is assured. The
the destination. The destination node sends a REP via
changes in the existing protocol are required at route
the selected route when it receives the first REQ or
reply and route recovery phases. In these phases the
subsequent REQs that traversed a better active route.
route table is updated with entries of backbone nodes.
Nodes monitor the link status of next hops in active
Each route table has an entry for number of backbone
routes. When a link break in an active route is detected,
nodes surrounding it and their hop distance form the
an ERR message is used to notify that the loss of link
node. For simplicity of the protocol the distance has
has occurred to its one hop neighbor. Here ERR
been assumed to be one hop.
message indicates those destinations which are no
As it has been described in Figure 1, the Route
longer reachable by way of the broken link. Taking
selection from S (source) to D (destination) is made via
advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless
1-2-3-4 using shortest path routing. In case any of the
communications, a node promiscuously overhears
participating nodes damages or move out of the range,
packets that are transmitted by their neighboring nodes.

2
When a node that is not part of the route overhears a sender (originator) of the currently undeliverable
REP packet not directed to itself transmit by a neighbor packet. BN attached is number of backbone nodes.
(on the primary route), it records that neighbor as the This factor is transmitted as weight factor to all nodes
next hop to the destination in its alternate route table. to select best available path. Addition of backbone
From these packets, a node obtains alternate path nodes help in selecting stable routes.
information and makes entries of these backbone nodes
(BN) in its route table. If route breaks occurs it just DSR:
starts route construction phase from that node. The The key feature of DSR is the use of source routing.
protocol updates list of BNs periodically in the route That is, the sender knows the complete hop-by-hop
table. route to the destination. These routes are stored in a
route cache. The data packets carry the source route in
3.2 Route Error & Maintenance (REP) Phase the packet header. When a node in the ad hoc network
attempts to send a data packet to a destination for
Data packets are delivered through the primary route
which it does not already know the route, it uses a
unless there is a route disconnection. When a node
route discovery process to dynamically determine such
detects a link break (for example, receives a link layer
a route. Route discovery works by flooding the
feedback signal from the MAC protocol, node1 does
network with route request (RREQ) packets. Each node
not receive passive acknowledgments, node2 does not
receiving a RREQ, rebroadcasts it, unless it is the
receive hello packets for a certain period of time, etc.),
destination or it has a route to the destination in its
it performs a one hop data broadcast to its immediate
route cache. Such a node replies to the RREQ with a
neighbors. The node specifies in the data header that
route reply (RREP) packet that is routed back to the
the link is disconnected and thus the packet is
original source. RREQ and RREP packets are also
candidate for alternate routing. Upon receiving this
source routed. The RREQ builds up the path traversed
packet, previous one hop neighbor starts route
so far. The RREP routes itself back to the source by
maintenance phase and constructs an alternate route
traversing this path backwards. The route carried back
through backbone nodes by checking their stability.
by the RREP packet is cached at the source for future
Nodes those have an entry for the destination in their
use. If any link on a source route is broken, the source
alternate route table; transmit the packet to their next
node is notified using a route error (RERR) packet. The
hop node. Data packets therefore can be delivered
source removes any route using this link from its
through one or more alternate routes and are not
cache. A new route discovery process must be initiated
dropped when route breaks occur. To prevent packets
by the source, if this route is still needed. DSR makes
from tracing a loop, these mesh nodes forward the data
very aggressive use of source routing and route
packet only if the packet is not received from their next
caching. No special mechanism to detect routing loops
hop to the destination and is not a duplicate. When a
is needed. Also, any forwarding node caches the source
node of the primary route receives the data packet from
route in a packet it forwards for possible future use.
alternate routes, it operates normally and forwards the
Some additional optimizations have been proposed
packet to its next hop when the packet is not a
here for DSR as (i) Selection: In DSR route request
duplicate. All this route maintenance occurs under
have been modified by changing cache settings. A
local repair scheme.
value is set at some minimum level and route reply is
checked, If route reply does not occur in that time then
3..3 Local Repair backbone nodes are used. Backbone nodes have been
entered at random level for DSR for better results. An
When a link break in an active route occurs, the node
intermediate node can use an alternate route from its
upstream of that break may choose to repair the link
own cache, when a data packet meets a failed link on
locally if the destination was no farther and there exists
its source route. (ii) route repair: A source node
Backbone Nodes that are active. The Time to live
receiving a RERR packet piggybacks the RERR in the
(TTL) of the REQ should initially be set to the
following RREQ. This helps clean up the caches of
following value:
other nodes in the network that may have the failed
TTL = max (MIN_Repair_TTL+ BN, 0.5* #hops) link in one of the cached source routes. (iii) Duplicate
routes: When a node overhears a packet not addressed
Where MIN_Repair_TTL is the known hop count to to itself, it checks whether the packet could be routed
the destination. #hops is the number of hops to the

3
via itself to gain a shorter route. If so, the node sends a Pause time of 0 means maximum mobility and 300 is
RREP to the source of the route with this new, better minimum mobility. Speed has been kept constant at 15
route. Aside from this, promiscuous listening helps a meter per second.
node to learn different routes without directly
participating in the routing process.
Packet delivery ratio

4. Simulation and Results 98

Simulation study has been carried out to study the 96

performance study of proposed scheme with existing 94 AODV
different protocols. Simulation Environment used is 92 Refined AODV

ra tio
NS-2[12] (network simulator).The version NS 2.28 has
90 DSR
been used to carry out the process. Simulation results
have been compared with AODV and DSR and their 88 Refined DSR
modified versions. The metrics used in the simulation 86
study to perform evaluations have been discussed 84
below. 1 2 5 10 15 20
Packet Delivery Ratio: The fraction of successfully
speed m/s
received packets, which survive while finding their
destination. This performance measure also determines
the completeness and correctness of the routing
protocol. Figure 3 : Packet delivery at different speeds
End-to-End Delay: Average end-to-end delay is the
delay experienced by the successfully delivered An approximate increase of 16-20 % have been seen
packets in reaching their destinations. This is a good in packet delivery of AODV and DSR modified
metric for comparing protocols. This denotes how versions. AODV gets stable even at higher pause time
efficient the underlying routing algorithm is, because as shown in figure 2. This trend is more evident with
delay primarily depends on optimality of path chosen. use of stable backbone nodes. The scenario has been
changed in figure 3 for 50 nodes moving at different
speeds. Speed has been varied from 1 meter per second
Packet delivery ratio to 20 meters per second.

1
End to end delay
0.95
AODV
0.8
refined AODV
ratio

0.9
DSR 0.7
REF DSR 0.6 AODV
d e la y (m s )

0.85
Refined AODV
0.5
0.8 DSR
0 20 50 100 150 200 250 300
0.4 Refined DSR
Pause time 0.3

0.2
Figure 2 : Packet delivery at pause times 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

In simulation study 50 nodes have been taken in a speed m/s

random scenario with 1000 × 750 areas. The area
selected is rectangular instead of square as in earlier Figure 4: End to end delay at different speeds
simulations. This relates it better to real life scenarios.
The study has been conducted at different pause times.

4
The trend clearly indicate more packet delivery for Special Issue on Routing in Mobile Communication
refined versions of protocols. Refined ADOV has Networks, pp. 183-197, Oct. 1996.
better delivery at faster speeds. It gets stabilized at fast [4] C. C. Chiang, H. K. Wu, W. Liu, and M.
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selection of stable route. IEEE SICON’97, pp. 197-211, April 1997.
[5]C. Perkins, et al , “Ad Hoc On Demand Distance
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structure and alternate paths. The scheme can be Distributed Routing Algorithm for Mobile Wireless
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Alternate routes are utilized only when data packets [9] C. K. Toh, “A Novel Distributed Routing Protocol
cannot be delivered through the primary route. As a to Support Ad Hoc Mobile Computing”, Proceedings
case study, the proposed scheme has been applied to of the 1996 IEEE Fifteenth Annual International
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that the technique provides robustness to mobility and [10] Z. J. Hass, “A New Routing Protocol for the
enhances protocol performance. Average increase in Reconfigurable Wireless Network,” IEEE 6th
packet delivery occurs for both protocols. The International Conference on Universal Personal
Backbone based node Routing gives a better approach Communication Record 1997, Vol. 2, pp. 562-566,
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maintenance. It caused a bit more end to end delay. [11] S. Ramanathan and M. Steenstrup, “A survey of
The process of checking the protocol scheme is on for routing techniques for mobile communications
more sparse mediums and real life scenarios and also networks”, Mobile Networks and Applications, pp. 89–
for other metrics like Path optimality, Link layer 104, 1996.
overhead. Additionally, the plan is to further evaluate [12] NS Notes and Documentation, available at
the proposed scheme by using factor of power and www.isi.edu/vint.
quality of service.

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