EEAODR: An energy‐efficient ad hoc on‐demand routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are characterized by random, multi‐hop topologies that do not have a centralized coordinating entity or a fixed infrastructure that may change rapidly over time. In addition, mobile nodes operate with portable and finite power sources. In this work, we propose an energy‐efficient routing protocol for MANETs to minimize energy consumption and increase the network's consistency. Traditional works mainly focused on the shortest path‐based schemes to minimize energy, which might result into network failure because some nodes might exhaust fast as they are used repetitively, while some other nodes might not be used at all. This can lead to energy imbalance and to network life reduction. We propose an energy‐efficient ad hoc on‐demand routing protocol that balances energy load among nodes so that a minimum energy level is maintained among nodes and the network life increases. We focused on increasing the network longevity by distributing energy consumption in the network. We also compared the simulation results with a popular existing on‐demand routing protocol in this area, AODV, to establish the superiority of our approach. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.