A Stable Backup Routing Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

High-speed mobility and heavy-load traffic in mobile Ad hoc networks (MANET) may result in frequent topology changes and packet loss. To guarantee packet delivery, a novel stable backup routing (SBR) scheme is put forward in this paper, which consists of the establishment of backup routes and route maintenance. In SBR, backup routes are set up by overhearing MAC signals, and the bit error rate is considered in path selection for improving stability. To repair broken links effectively and reasonably, qualified backup routes are classified into three categories with different priorities, based on which the relevant nodes decide how to reconstruct the forwarding path. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms other comparable backup routing mechanisms in terms of packet delivery ratio, average delay and control overhead.