Development of a high performance routing protocol for wireless ad hoc networks

In a wireless ad-hoc network where wireless links are established by connecting to different devices like laptops and mobile phones, it is difficult to maintain the link as the devices (nodes) are constantly moving around. Therefore, in order to improve the efficiency of a transmission link so as to increase the throughput, different algorithms or methods have been implemented. One such algorithm is the Location-Aided Routing (LAR) protocol in which all the nodes are flooded with the Route Request (RREQ) packets until the packets reach the destination node. Despite the workability of this protocol, the throughput was not high. In an effort to improve the efficiency, this project was proposed. Based on observation of the characteristics of the devices in terms of their directions, velocities of movement and shortest distance to the baseline (direct line from source to destination), this project came up with a new algorithm which selects the best intermediate nodes using the characteristics mentioned. Using its own movement characteristics, the destination node compares the different neighbouring nodes within range and selects the node which is the most similar to its own movement pattern. This would be repeated by the selected intermediate node until the source node is reached. After the completion of the new algorithm, the algorithm is translated into a code which would be executed to obtain results in terms of throughput versus number of nodes (Considering constant velocity of nodes) and throughput versus velocity of nodes (Considering constant number of nodes). With this new algorithm, the established link has a lower tendency of breaking as compared to the LAR protocol. Due to this lower probability of breakage in the link, transmissions are much smoother. As a result, the throughput is improved. From the results gathered, it could be seen that this new algorithm would serve to improve the efficiency of the ad-hoc network. With these results, future improvement could be made based on this algorithm.Bachelor of Engineerin