ACR: an adaptive communication-aware routing through maximally zone-disjoint shortest paths in ad hoc wireless networks with directional antenna

A fundamental problem that distinguishes wireless networks from wired networks is the mutual interference between routes within the proximity of each other. This phenomenon is known as route coupling and it restricts the possibility of occurrence of simultaneous communications along the coupled routes. In this context, the use of directional antenna, having smaller transmission beam-width compared to omni-directional antenna, helps to easily decouple interfering routes, and improves network performance through space division multiple access (SDMA). However, even if we have an efficient directional MAC protocol, it alone would not be able to guarantee good system performance, unless we have a proper routing strategy in place that exploits the advantages of directional antenna. So, in this paper, an adaptive routing strategy is proposed that exploits the advantages of directional antenna in ad hoc networks through the selection of maximally zone-disjoint shortest routes. Zone-disjoint routes would minimize the effect of route coupling and improve the overall network performance. The proposed strategy ensures effective load balancing and is applied to design and implement both single path and multipath routing protocols in ad hoc networks with directional antennas. Simulation results obtained on QualNet network simulator shows the effectiveness of the proposed routing protocols. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.