Movement guided management of topology (MGMT) with balanced load in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

To reduce energy consumption, nodes in ad hoc networks generally move according to a pre-established schedule of network traffic and movement patterns of uplink and downlink neighbors. While some of them may go to sleep at times, one suitable alternative is to remain in active mode in order to bridge the gap between the uplink and downlink neighbors of the sleeping node. The main challenge of selecting which node should stay in active mode and which node should go to sleep, stem from the need to conserve energy while maintaining communication. Proactive topology management protocols identify redundant nodes that may power off the radios. Such protocols are independent of network traffic and incur backbone maintenance cost even when the network is idle. MGMT is a movement guided topology management scheme that suggests movements of nodes so that, for a given communication link, transmitter and receiver may come closer without hampering their links with other nodes i.e. respective uplink and downlink neighbors. Moreover, MGMT works based on the schedule in which packets are forwarded to the downlink neighbors of a node. It is energy efficient in the sense that it always concentrates on gaining radio-frequency energy at the cost of some kinetic energy which is at most half of the gained radio-frequency energy. Through extensive simulation, we demonstrate that MGMT achieves huge energy conservation while maintaining efficient communication.