A multipath energy-efficient routing protocol for ad hoc networks

Ad hoc networks consist of mobile nodes which have no fixed infrastructure. The mobile nodes have limited battery energy, so it is very important to use energy efficiently in ad hoc networks. In order to maximize the lifetime of ad hoc networks, packet should be sent via a route that can avoid nodes with low power. A lot of routing protocols about ad hoc networks have been proposed. But most of them build and rely on single route for each data session. Multipath technique, however, can improve the mean time to node failure and balance the load in ad hoe networks. Accordingly, this paper proposes a new multipath routing protocol, MEER (Multipath Energy-Efficient Routing) that includes the advantages of on-demand protocols, also prolongs the network lifetime by using a rational power control mechanism.