QoS-aware multipath routing protocol for delay sensitive applications in MANETs A cross-layer approach

Abstract

This paper proposes a QoS multipath routing protocol (QMRP) for MANETs based on the single path AODV routing protocol. QMRP establishes node-disjoint paths that experience the lowest delay. Other delay-aware routing protocols do not factor in the projected contribution of the node requesting a route in the total network load. The implication is that the end-to-end (E2E) delay obtained through RREQ is no longer accurate. Unlike its predecessors, QMRP takes into account the projected contribution of the source node in the calculation of E2E delay. To obtain accurate estimate of path delay, QMRP uses cross-layer communication to achieve link and channel-awareness. Performance evaluation of QMRP and comparison with AODV using OPNET show that QMRP outperforms AODV in terms of average throughput, delay and packet loss has been conducted.