Fuzzy logic based enhanced AOMDV with link status classification for efficient multi-path routing in multi-hop wireless networks

Nodes in a multi-hop wireless network rely on each other to maintain network connectivity. A primary design objective of these networks is to eliminate or minimize the unavailability of network at some point. However, the movement of nodes creates service disruption and delay as path failure detection and re-establishment consume considerable amount of time. Existing solutions for link classification and prediction operate on discrete values resulting in performance degradation. This problem can best be modelled using fuzzy logic. This work presents a new fuzzy logic based link status classification mechanism for the use with multipath routing protocols in multi-hop wireless networks. The new Enhanced Adhoc On-demand Multipath Distance Vector (eAOMDV) uses fuzzy logic to classify the link status as active, about-to-break or broken. On the basis of fuzzy input parameters RSSI, velocity, distance and bit error rate, the fuzzy based classification mechanism predicts in advance that a particular link, on the active path between the sender and receiver, is about-to-break and helps the reactive multipath routing protocol to start the rerouting operation, thus minimizing the service disruption time, route discovery frequency, end-to-end delay and the packet loss. © 2017 American Scientific Publishers.