Effect of HELLO interval duration on stable routing for mobile ad hoc networks

As the demand for mobile ad hoc wireless network (MANET) applications grows there is a need to research how to maintain the quality of the connections in such networks where communication is performed without a fixed infrastructure. Compared to static wireless networks, little academic research has been done on message overhead control in MANETs. In this paper, we are particularly concerned with position-based MANETs where, as part of the MANET protocols to maintain nodes´ lists of current neighbors, at regular intervals all nodes send HELLO beacon messages containing their ID and current position information to their neighbors. Since the choice of the duration of the HELLO message interval can not be arbitrary, the interval size is one of the significant issues that needs be investigated further to make communication reliable in MANETs. Therefore, we study the effect of varying the length of the time interval on two contrasting types of greedy-based stable routing protocols for MANETs, one using backup paths and the other using a conservative neighborhood range, in terms of the number of control messages exchanged and throughput for the protocols.