Energy-Efficient Method to Improve TCP Performance for MANETs

The current implementation of TCP for the Internet is not efficient when used for Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). This is because TCP assumes that all packet losses are caused by congestion, whereas transmission errors are a main reason for packet losses in wireless networks. To ameliorate this situation and increase performance, we propose a method of using multi-metric parameters to distinguish the causes for packet losses and use Colored Petri Net to analyze the revised protocol. We call this TCP-MEDX (Mobile Error Detection eXtension). TCP-MEDX has two characteristics: Firstly, it is energy-efficient because this solution is only initiated when a packet loss is detected. This characteristic is very important for MANETs because of its limited power source; secondly, our approach removes negative effects caused by asymmetry in wireless links, thus improving correctness in determining causes for packet losses. Our simulation results using Design/CPN show that the proposed approach increases throughput and reduces propagation delay compared with standard TCP.