Scalable Lifetime in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Wireless ad hoc networks are self-organized groups of mobile devices that are able to communicate with each other using a wireless physical medium. A critical issue in ad hoc networks is how to maintain network activities in order to achieve maximum lifespan despite energy constraints. The aim of power management of routing protocols is to prolong the lifetime of the entire network and to increase the delivery rate of transactions carried out through the mobile network. We define a Quality-of-Power-Service (QoPS) metric to evaluate the efficiency of power-aware unicast routing protocols. The aim of these protocols is to increase the longevity of ad hoc networks. QoPS metric is applied to different position-based power-aware unicast routing protocols. Our simulation results confirm that power-relative distribution of data streams in multi-path unicast routing protocols distributes energy consumption to multiple nodes and thus increase the network's lifetime. Moreover, the experiments show that multi-path protocols provide excellent scalability and high delivery success rate. The locality distribution phenomenon discovered by the simulations explains, on the one hand, the improved scalability and the long lifetime of large, dense, and high-degree wireless networks, and on the other hand, the short lifetime of small, sparse, and low-degree networks.