Adaptive tuning in Minimum Drain Rate Algorithm for routing protocols in MANETs

Mobile ad-hoc networks are one of the most active research areas in the wireless communications field. These networks do not need any fixed infrastructure or configuration, easily adapting to difficult scenarios and types of use. Since mobile nodes are often powered by limited batteries, energy is an important issue in MANETs since the lack of a node can lead to the partitioning of the network. Recently, many different strategies have been proposed in order to optimize the energy consumption and prolong the mobile network lifetime, especially at the routing layer. These policies use energy-aware metrics, instead of minimum-hop routing, to achieve this goal. In this paper, the Minimum Drain Rate routing metric is analyzed, which is one of the most promising techniques, with the aim of clarifying the relationship between its parameters and the node energy consumption pattern. Some considerations will be made about this relationship, and they will be demonstrated via simulations. Finally, an adaptive technique will be proposed, in order to improve energy evaluation at the mobile nodes.