RMR: Reliability Based Multi-hop Routing in Wireless Tactical Networks

We propose a novel routing protocol, RMR, for wireless tactical, high-mobility military networks that finds reliable routes through difficult terrains with possibly compromised regions. RMR uses an end-to-end reliability measure that includes both end-to-end connectivity as well as trustworthiness, and reactively discovers routes over spatial cells whose local reliability is proactively maintained by fast dissemination through the network. By using a space-centric approach where reliability is attributed to space rather than to nodes, RMR is able to find reliable routes through space that persist for longer durations than node-centric protocols. Via QualNet simulation studies, we compare the performance of our protocol with AODV in terms of end-to-end reliability as well as delay, and packet delivery ratio (PDR), and quantify the effects of node density, velocity, and traffic load on these performance metrics.