A Power-Aware Routing Scheme for Ad Hoc Networks

Wireless network devices, especially in ad hoc networks, are typically battery-powered. The growing need for energy efficiency in wireless networks, in general, and in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), in particular, calls for power enhancement features. The goal of this dissertation is to extend network lifetime by improving energy utilization in MANET routing. We utilize the ability of wireless network interface cards to dynamically change their transmission power, as well as the ability of wireless devices to read the remaining battery energy of the device to create a table of what we term "reluctance values," which the device uses to determine how to route packets. Choosing routes with lower reluctance values, on average and with time, leads to better utilization of the energy resources of the devices in the network. Our power-aware scheme can be applied to both reactive and proactive MANET routing protocols. As examples and to evaluate performance, the technique has been applied to the Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol, a reactive routing protocol, and the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol, a proactive routing protocol. Simulations have been carried out on large static and mobile networks. Results show improvements in network lifetime in static and certain mobile scenarios. Results also show better distribution of residual node energies at the end of simulations, which means that the scheme is balancing energy load more evenly across network nodes than the unmodified versions of DSR and OLSR. Average change in energy over time in the unmodified protocols show a steady increase with time, while the power-aware protocols show an increase in the beginning, then it levels for sometime before it starts to decrease. The power-aware scheme shows improvements in static and in coordinated mobility scenarios. In random mobility the power-aware protocols show no advantage over the unmodified protocols.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Koujah, Fahad

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Midkiff, Scott F.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Martin, Thomas L.
• Mishra, Amitabh
• Koelling, C. Patrick
• DaSilva, Luiz A.

• IEEE 802.11b
• power-aware
• MANET
• energy-efficient
• WLAN
• routing

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-07102006-131930

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/28248