SOAP: A Cognitive Hybrid Routing Protocol for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

With the shift towards wireless technology increasing at a faster rate than ever before, it is becoming ever more important to focus on optimising the routing functionality of a wireless network. The purpose of this paper is to outline the different types of routing that can be applied in a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) and to propose a new routing protocol named SOAP. The SOAP routing protocol is designed as a cognitive hybrid protocol, making use of the functionality that exists in the popular proactive OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing) and reactive AODV (Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector) MANET routing protocols. The paper concludes that the SOAP protocol brings about performance improvements across a few Quality of Service metrics such as a lower delay than AODV and a lower routing overhead than OLSR but more work needs to be placed in ensuring its reliability and consistency across different network conditions. The SOAP protocol did not perform consistently in terms of packet loss and throughput and these issues should be addressed in further research.