Enhancing Cooperation in MANET Using the Backbone Group Model (An Application of Maximum Coverage Problem)

Abstract MANET is a cooperative network in which every node is responsible for routing and forwarding as a result consumes more battery power and bandwidth. In order to save itself in terms of battery power and bandwidth noncooperation is genuine. Cooperation can be enhanced on the basis of reduction in resource consumption by involving a limited number of nodes in routing activities rather than all. To get accurate selection of nodes to define a backbone several works have been proposed in the literature. These works define a backbone with impractical assumptions that is not feasible for MANET. In this paper we have presented the Backbone Group (BG) model, which involve the minimum number of nodes called BG in routing activities instead of all. A BG is a minimal set of nodes that efficiently connects the network. We have divided a MANET in terms of the single hop neighborhood called locality group (LG). In a LG we have a cluster head (CH), a set of regular nodes (RNs) and one or more border nodes (BNs). The CHs are responsible for the creation and management of LG and BG. The CHs use a BG for a threshold time then switches to another BG, to involve all nodes in network participation. The proposed model shows its effectiveness in terms of reduction in routing overhead up to a ratio (n2: n2/k) where k is the number of LGs.