Improving Route Stability of the AODV Routing Protocol Using Fuzzy Approach

There are many studies that focus on improving source–destination route stability and lifetime by modifying the existing wireless mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANETs) routing protocols. In this study, a fuzzy based approach is proposed to enhance the Ad Hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol’s performance by selecting the most trusted nodes to construct a route between the source and the final destination nodes. In this scheme, the nodes’ parameters, like residual energy, node mobility, and hop count are fed through a fuzzy logic inference system to compute the value of the node trust level, which can be used as a metric to construct an optimal path from source to destination. The simulation results show that the proposed Fuzzy AODV approach performs better than the classical AODV routing protocol. The average routing load and average end to end delay metrics were improved in all cases of different network parameter changes as node speed, number of nodes, and pause times for both of classical AODV and Fuzzy AODV routing protocols. Whereas the Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) and average network throughput were slightly varied in different network parameter changes. As shown in simulation results, the effects of fuzzy logic inference modifications that have improved the route selection procedure of classical AODV. This route selection scheme reduces the rebroadcasting of overhead route control (RREQ) packets at each intermediate node which receives more than one copy of the same RREQ packets. This will reduce the number of overhead route control packets flooding throughout the network in route discovery stages of classical AODV routing protocol. As a result, it decreases the network congestion and helps the network to retain their limited network resources. Keywords: AODV, routing protocol, MANET, fuzzy logic, trusted nodes.