On Improving Dynamic Source Routing for Intermittently Available Nodes in MANETs

Previous work on routing in MANETs has resulted in numerous routing protocols that aim at satisfying constraints such as minimum hop or low energy. Existing routing protocols often fail to discover stable routes between source and sink when route availability is transient, i.e., due to mobile devices switching their network cards into low-power sleep modes whenever no communication is taking place. In this paper, the authors introduce a Stability Aware Dynamic Source Routing protocol (SA-DSR) that is capable of predicting the stability (i.e., expiration time) of multiple routes. SA-DSR then selects the route that minimizes hop count while staying available for the expected duration of packet transmission.