AODV-RM: route maintenance against route flapping in Ad hoc network

Route flapping is common in mobile Ad hoc networks. It usually causes large delay or even interruption during communication. This paper proposed a routing protocol AODV-RM to alleviate this effect. AODV-RM selects routes with the lightest traffic load, to avoid striving for hot nodes with other users, hence minishes the chance of collision. AODV-RM keeps all valid routes to the destination in its routing table as backups. When the link under usage breaks down, AODV-RM shifts to a valid route in its routing table instead of route repair or re-searching, which ensures the continuity of communication. AODV-RM chooses a route maintenance scheme by the network topology. If the origination has multi routes to the destination, only the origination maintains routes. Otherwise, middle nodes, instead of the origination, maintain sub-routes to the destination. By simulating the traditional AODV and AODV-RM, the results showed that AODV-RM has a lower drop rate and better performance against route flapping.