Evaluation of Power Control Mechanism on OLSR Routing Protocol

T he mobility that characterizes the wireless networks, is leading to the use of ad hoc networks for wireless communications. Due to the constant motion of wireless devices, infrastructure wireless networks cannot provide connectivity at all times, in comparison with ad hoc networks, which are more easy to use and are based on abstract and continuously altering topologies. The use of specialized routing protocols is improving the performance of these networks, concluding to lower power consumption and faster communication. However, routing is not enough to preserve the battery power of the mobile devices. By using a power control mechanism on top of the routing protocols, further power savings can be achieved. In this paper, we present a power control mechanism which relies on the routing protocol in order to make decisions about power management and the behavior and the performance of the network. The mechanism is based on using SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) as a metric for adjusting the transmission power accordingly and eventually saving a respectable amount of energy to prolong life time of mobile devices and benefit the performance ad hoc networks.