On efficient network planning and routing in large-scale MANETs

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), hierarchical architecture and distributed approaches are more practical than flat architecture and centralized approaches. In this paper, we propose a suite of protocols that achieve a distributed planning and routing scheme for MANETs. The proposed suite, which is composed of three protocols, offers scalability and extends network lifetime. The first protocol, i.e., the fast distributed connected dominating set (FDDS), constructs the virtual backbone by designing a fast distributed hierarchical algorithm that finds a connected dominating set (CDS) in the network graph. The constructed virtual backbone takes into account the node's limited energy, mobility, and traffic pattern. The second protocol, i.e., FDDS-M, proposes a distributed maintenance protocol that preserves the integrity of the hierarchical structure constructed by FDDS. The third protocol, i.e., FDDS-R, uses an intelligent path-selection fuzzy logic controller that can easily be incorporated in any existing link state routing protocol to select energy-efficient routes. We conducted extensive simulations that compare the operational properties (energy efficiency and network lifetime) of our schemes with others. The results show that our proposed schemes can achieve scalability and energy efficiency and outperform some of well-known approaches in the literature.