Anticipated route maintenance (ARM) in location-aided mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks are composed of moving wireless hosts which, when within range of each other, form wireless networks. For communication to occur between hosts that are not within each other´s range, routes involving intermediate nodes must be established; however, since the hosts may be in motion, a host that was part of a route may move away from its upstream and downstream partners, thus breaking the route. Our work shows that by utilizing only local geographic information (now a part of some route finding algorithms), a host can anticipate its neighbor´s departure and, if other hosts are available, choose a host to bridge the gap, keeping the path connected. We present a distributed algorithm that anticipates route failure and performs preventative route maintenance using location information to increase a route lifespan. The benefits are that this reduces the need to find new routes (which is very expensive) and prevents interruptions in service. Simulation shows that as the density of nodes increase the chance to successfully utilize our route maintenance approach increases, and so does the savings