A Cross Layer Routing Protocol for Multihop Cellular Networks

We propose a cross-layer routing protocol for a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Multihop Cellular Network (MCN). In designing the routing protocol for MCN, multiple constraints are imposed on intermediate relay node selection and end-to-end path selection. The constraints on relay nodes include willingness for cooperation, sufficient neighbourhood connectivity and the level of interference offered on the path. Path constraints include end-to-end throughput and end-to-end delay. A facile incentive mechanism is presented to motivate the cooperation between nodes in call forwarding. In addition, we present a route resilience scheme in the event of dynamic call dropping. In particular, a fast neighbour detection scheme for route resilience is proposed. Instead of using periodic HELLO messages as in traditional ad-hoc routing, the proposed neighbour detection scheme adopts an explicit handshake mechanism to reduce neighbour detection latency. We conclude the paper by demonstrating the superior performance of the proposed routing protocol compared with the other well known routing algorithms.