Selection Forward Routing (SFR): An On-Demand Routing Protocol for Mobile Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Flooding mechanism is widely used in ad hoc networks for its high reliability and coverage rate. However, flooding is inefficient for its large number of redundant messages and extortionate energy consumption. To support rapid route discovery without introducing too much route discovery traffic, an on-demand routing protocol for mobile wireless ad hoc networks, called Selection Forward Routing (SFR), is proposed in this paper. SFR carries on a constrained message forwarding for route discovery based on the node connectivity degree, which can consequently reduce the number of redundant messages introduced by flooding. SFR also integrates a better path search mechanism to try finding a better path to the specified destination node, while keeping the route discovery traffic relatively low. The simulation results show that in a mobile wireless ad hoc network, SFR has the same reliability and performance on route discovery as the flooding routing protocol, while reducing 30.2% energy consumption and 56.1% redundant messages introduced by the flooding routing protocol.