Virtual Paths Routing A Highly Dynamic and Adaptive Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

In this paper, we introduce the Virtual Paths Routing Protocol (VPR) for ad hoc wireless networks. An ad hoc wireless network is a collection of mobile nodes that roam dynamically and communicate without relying on an existing network infrastructure. Intermediate nodes between a source and destination are used as routers. The key purpose of VPR is to provide correct, efficient, and highly adaptive route creation and maintenance between nodes. The VPR utilizes two well known routing techniques, namely source and table routing. It is a distributed, on-demand, and adaptive protocol that comprises two phases. The first phase is path discovery, which is initiated when a source node needs to communicate with a destination node (i.e., routing is on-demand). All the nodes within the vicinity potentially participate in this phase, which may yield more than one path. The selection of a path between source and destination can be made using a number of criteria, including the least number of hops, the minimum round trip delay, or the path with the least load. The second phase is path maintenance, in which the protocol monitors all the active paths. In this phase, the protocol observes local connectivity, link breakages, and node mobility, and uses these observations to adjust its internal parameters accordingly. It does this to achieve high adaptation.