Reducing the impact of mobility-induced route failures on QoS in MANETs

In this paper, we introduce QMR/PR, a flexible QoS-sensitive routing framework for mobile ad hoc networks, which addresses the problems caused by mobility-induced route failures. QMR/PR combines packet-interleaving using multipath routing and packet-level forward error correction. A particularly promising feature is its ability to signficantly reduce both random and correlated packet losses, a critical issue for realtime applications. To provide accurate and reliable performance evaluation results, we have integrated QMR/PR into the QualNet simulation software, allowing us to conduct an extensive performance evaluation in a realistic networking architecture including all layers of the protocol stack. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and show that, compared to single-path routing, QMR/PR can reduce packet loss by 42-84 percent depending on the networking environment (e.g., node mobility, frequency of path failures), while simultaneously reducing routing overhead.