MESH: multi-eye spiral-hopping routing protocol in a wireless ad hoc network

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a characterized by multi-hop wireless links, absence of any cellular infrastructure, and frequent host mobility. Existing MANET routing protocols are divided into location-aware and non-location-aware routing protocols. In a location-aware routing protocol, location information can be exploited to facilitate routing. Our protocol, namely the multi-eye spiral-hopping (MESH) routing protocol, is a location-aware routing protocol. Most promising routing protocols are constructed by the route-discovery, route-reply, and route-maintenance phases. Our MESH protocol utilizes the location information to confine the blind-flooding region in the route-discovery phase, minimize route-reply packets in the route-reply phase, and promote routing robustness in the route-maintenance phase. Two major contributions of this paper are introduced: (1) a multi-eye scheme is presented to confine the route-discovery region for reducing redundant packets; and (2) a highly robust path, called the spiral-hopping path, is introduced to provide on-line route-recovery capability. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the protocol.