Localized power-aware routing for wireless ad hoc networks

Power use is a crucial issue in wireless ad hoc networks since mobile hosts are typically battery-constrained. This paper presents a localized power-efficient routing protocol, which aims at improving the power-use efficiency of traditional ad hoc routing protocols. Our protocol works by introducing recursive localized power-use optimization at intermediate nodes on routes that a traditional routing protocol returns either proactively or reactively. For this purpose, each network node maintains the state information of its one-hop neighborhood. Simulation results demonstrate that the designed protocol can significantly improve the power use efficiency of traditional protocols. The simplicity, low overhead, and high efficiency in power utilization make the designed protocol suitable for providing scalable power-efficient routing support in wireless ad hoc networks.