QoSBeeManet: a new QoS multipath routing protocol for mobile ad‐hoc networks

International audienceIn the few last years, there is an increasing need of QoS guarantees for multimedia and real time applications in mobile ad hoc networks. While several QoS routing protocols were proposed, adaptive routing has not be enough exploited. This paper introduces a new multipath quality of service (QoS) routing protocol for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) called QoSBeeManet. Based on the autonomic bee communication principle, the protocol guarantees, in addition to the basic routing functionality, a set of measurable QoS metrics used for multimedia and real time applications. To reduce the network congestion, QoSBeeManet uses a stochastic broadcasting of scouts as routing packets. Moreover, an evaluation of each discovered path is executed and is taken into account by the source node in the aim to transmit fairly data packets through the paths found. The simulation results reached in NS2 were compared to the conventional AODV and DSR routing protocols and have shown that QoSBeeManet has improved the average bandwidth and has reduced the average end-to-end delay. In addition, packet delivery ratio and routing protocol overhead were very close to those of AODV and DSR