Experimental results with a GPS and signal strength extended ad hoc routing protocol

During the last years, research paid a lot of attention to develop ad hoc routing algorithms. Several proposals recommend the usage of additional external metrics. These metrics improve the route selection decision in order to maximize route lifetimes and to minimize the number of required route reestablishments. This work uses an existing routing algorithm and extend it with additional information. The usage of positioning information to forecast node positions is widely discussed in literature, as well as the utilization of signal strength measurements of incoming packet to predetermine link breaks. This paper focus on the computational effort, necessary to provision the routing algorithm with these metrics. Against the expectation, our experiments reveal distinct declines in effectiveness for the positioning enhanced routing algorithm. Whereas the same experiments show that a signal strength metric improves the route selection decision, because it provides an additional metric without additional costs.