Link lifetime prediction for optimal routing in mobile ad hoc networks

Routing appears to be the most well studied aspect in ad hoc networking. However, existing routing protocols usually do not take link lifetime into account for route establishment or maintenance. In this paper assuming that nodes are moving independently in a mobile ad hoc network, we first illustrate that the expected remaining link lifetime increases with already elapsed link time. Based on a consideration where old contacts are regarded as more reliable than new ones, we develop a mechanism where routes are established and maintained based on the 'ages' of the available links. Compared with traditional routing algorithms, the proposed mechanism provides more reliable routes in terms of path lifetime. And at the same time, less protocol overhead and correspondingly higher throughput are expected with the knowledge of elapsed and remaining link lifetimes. The applicability of this approach is of practical interest to for example military scenarios where the movement of the nodes are often correlative.