A new priority aware routing protocol for efficient emergency data transmissions in MANETs

Abstract

This paper introduces a new priority-aware routing protocol for mobile Ad-hoc networks to be utilized in emergencies, which is based on AODV. Mobile Ad-hoc networks find extensive use in various domains including military operations, environmental monitoring, healthcare, disaster response, smart transportation systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and smart homes. During emergencies, communication can be severely restricted or even impossible due to the congestion of physical communication channels and unexpected technical failures in the infrastructure. Mobile Ad-hoc networks offer a solution to maintain continuous and reliable communication under such challenging conditions. In emergency scenarios, it is crucial for any node in the network to promptly deliver urgent messages to the intended destination, especially when certain nodes require ongoing active communication. The proposed routing protocol effectively addresses this requirement through its priority-aware mechanisms. The protocol ensures that nodes not involved in emergency tasks select the least congested route to prevent any delays or disruptions in the transmission of critical emergency data. This approach guarantees seamless communication for emergency nodes while allowing non-emergency nodes to communicate with each other as well. The study proposed in this paper introduces a new priority-aware routing protocol based on AODV for mobile Ad-hoc networks in emergencies. The packet transmission ratio of emergency nodes within the network is improved while maintaining the overall network performance unaffected. The adoption of proposed mechanisms to enhance performance does not necessitate an expansion in the size of data and control packets. These mechanisms do not inflict any supplementary latency or incur packet loss expenses on the network. The proposed protocol has been implemented and evaluated using ns-3 simulation software across various emergency scenarios. The results show that emergency nodes using the proposed protocol, achieve better packet delivery ratios compared to the original AODV, DSR, P-AODV, and AOMDV protocols, with improvements of 10.8%, 15.9%, 6.2%, and 5.9% respectively. This improvement in the packet delivery ratio for emergency data traffic is achieved without causing any disruptions in the overall network communication flow.