A Velocity-Aware Collaborative Routing Protocol for Reducing Energy Consumption in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
AUTHORS
Ethan J. Morales,Department of Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
Hannah L. Watkins,School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Marcus D. Fields,Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Olivia R. Bennet,College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
ABSTRACT
Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have emerged as a critical component of modern wireless communication, enabling decentralized, infrastructure-free connectivity across various mobile devices. However, one of the persistent challenges in MANETs is the limited battery life of mobile terminals, which constrains network longevity and performance. Traditional solutions have primarily focused on improving battery technology or implementing energy-aware routing strategies. Yet, these approaches often neglect the impact of high-mobility nodes, such as vehicles, on route stability and control overhead. This paper introduces a novel routing mechanism, the Collaborative Routing and Velocity-aware (CRV) protocol, designed to enhance energy efficiency in MANETs by intelligently incorporating high-powered vehicular nodes as routing intermediaries. Unlike existing mobility-aware protocols that rely on frequent velocity data exchanges and complex computations, CRV employs a lightweight strategy where fast-moving nodes self-deactivate their routing functions based on a predefined speed threshold. This minimizes control message propagation and ensures that only stationary or slow-moving nodes participate in route discovery and maintenance. An enhanced version of the protocol (CRV+) further stabilizes active routes by temporarily allowing high-speed nodes to forward packets until ongoing sessions are completed. Extensive simulations were conducted using the QualNet simulator to evaluate CRV and CRV+ under various node densities, traffic loads, and velocity conditions. Results demonstrate that CRV significantly reduces route request overhead, improves control packet efficiency, and lowers the total energy consumed by pedestrian mobile nodes. Specifically, CRV+ achieves up to a 51.3% improvement in packet transfer efficiency compared to the standard AODV protocol. These findings confirm the effectiveness of the CRV protocol as a scalable, low-complexity solution for prolonging mobile node battery life while maintaining high-quality communication in dynamic, vehicle-assisted MANET environments.
KEYWORDS
Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), Energy-Efficient Routing, Velocity-Aware Protocols, Collaborative Routing, Vehicular Nodes, Control Overhead Reduction
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