IJCST Vol.

3, Issue 4, Oct - Dec 2012 ISSN : 0976-8491 (Online) | ISSN : 2229-4333 (Print)

Position Based Routing in Mobile Ad-Hoc

Networks: An Overview
1
Simardeep Kaur, 2Anuj K. Gupta
RIMT IET, Punjab, India
1

2
Dept. of CSE, RIMT IET, Punjab, India

Abstract quality, propagation path loss, fading, multiuser interference,

The mobile ad hoc networks are used now days due its several power expended, and topological changes, become relevant issues.
advantages over the other networks. Several protocols are used The network should be able to adaptively alter the routing paths
for wireless ad hoc networks such as reactive protocols proactive to alleviate any of these effects.
protocols for finding routes. Hybrid protocols are used which
combines the advantages of both reactive and proactive protocols. IV. Types of Routing Protocols
The position based routing protocols are also the part of hybrid There are different types of routing protocols for mobile ad hoc
routing protocol. The position based routing protocols uses GPS to networks. Some of them are based on topology and other protocols
find the availability of routes. In this paper various protocols for are position based. Each protocol has its own significance depending
position based routing in mobile ad hoc networks are discussed. upon the area of its application. Some of the protocols for mobile
ad hoc networks are discussed in this paper. There are three main
Keywords categories of routing protocols ie. proactive protocols, reactive
Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Position based Routing, GPS, Hybrid protocols and hybrid protocols. The hybrid protocols combine the
Protocols advantages of both reactive and proactive protocols. The position
based routing protocols comes under hybrid routing protocols.
I. Introduction
Infrastructure less wireless network is a network of mobile nodes
without having any central controller. In wireless communication
systems, there is a demand for the rapid deployment of independent
mobile users. Significant examples include establishing
survivable, efficient, dynamic communication for emergency/
rescue operations, disaster relief efforts, and military networks.
Such network scenarios cannot rely on centralized and organized
connectivity, and can be conceived as applications of Mobile Ad
Hoc Networks. The usage of physical positions of the nodes can
considerably improve the efficiency of routing techniques for
mobile ad hoc networks. This mainly leads to a much reduced
routing overhead and an increased packet delivery rate. Position-
Based Routing is possible through the availability of small
inexpensive GPS receivers and techniques for finding the relative
coordinates based on signal strengths.

II. Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

A MANET is an autonomous collection of mobile users that
communicate over relatively bandwidth constrained wireless links. Fig. 1: Different Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad-Hoc
Since the nodes are mobile, the network topology may change Networks
rapidly and unpredictably over time. The network is decentralized
where all network activity including discovering the topology and A. Proactive Routing Protocols
delivering messages must be executed by the nodes themselves In this type of routing protocol, each node in a network maintains
i.e. routing functionality is incorporated into mobile nodes. The one or more routing tables which are updated regularly. Each
set of applications for MANETs is diverse, ranging from small node sends a broadcast message to the entire network if there is
and static networks that are constrained by power sources to large- a change in the network topology. However, it incurs additional
scale mobile highly dynamic networks. The design of network overhead cost due to maintaining up-to-date information and as a
protocols for these networks is a complex issue. Regardless of result; throughput of the network may be affected but it provides
the application, MANETs need efficient distributed algorithms to the actual information to the availability of the network. Distance
determine network organization, link scheduling, and routing. Vector (DV) protocol, Destination Sequenced Distance Vector
(DSDV) protocol, are the examples of Proactive protocols.
III. Challenges in MANET Routing
Determining viable routing paths and delivering messages in a B. Reactive Protocols
decentralized environment where network topology fluctuates In this type of routing protocol, each node in a network discovers
is not a well-defined problem. While the shortest path (based or maintains a route based on-demand. It floods a control message
on a given cost function) from a source to a destination in a by global broadcast during discovering a route and when route is
static network is usually the optimal route, this idea is not easily discovered then bandwidth is used for data transmission. The main
extended to MANETs. Factors such as variable wireless link advantage is that this protocol needs less touting information but

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ISSN : 0976-8491 (Online) | ISSN : 2229-4333 (Print) IJCST Vol. 3, Issue 4, Oct - Dec 2012

the disadvantages are that it produces huge control packets due to the destination D than any of the nodes in its transmission range;
route discovery during topology changes which occurs frequently therefore greedy forwarding will reach a local maximum from
in MANETs and it incurs higher latency. The examples of this which it cannot recover. Generally, greedy forwarding works well
type of protocol are Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Ad-hoc On in dense networks, but in sparse networks it fails due to voids
Demand Routing (AODV). (regions without nodes).

C. Hybrid Routing Protocols

Hybrid routing algorithms aim to use advantages of table driven
and on demand algorithms and minimize their disadvantages.
Position based routing algorithms that are classified in the hybrid
routing algorithms category include the properties of table driven
and on demand protocols and are usually interested in localized
nodes. Localization is realized by GPS that is used to determine
geographical positions of nodes. Position changes which occur
because of nodes mobility in MANET cause changes in routing
tables of nodes. The GPSs, which are embedded in nodes, are
used to update information in tables in position-based algorithms.
That makes position-based algorithms different from the table
driven and on demand algorithms. Multi Point Relaying (MPR)
based algorithms, position based algorithms, Directional Routing
Algorithm (DIR), most Geographic Distance Routing (GEDIR) Fig. 2: Greedy Routing Failure Example
are few examples of hybrid routing protocols
B. Restricted Directional Flooding
D. Position Based Routing Protocols In restricted directional flooding, the sender broadcasts the packet
Position-based routing algorithms eliminate some of the limitations (whether the data packet or route request packet) to all single hop
of topology-based routing by using additional information. A neighbors towards the destination. The node which receives the
location service is used by the sender of a packet to determine packet, checks whether it is within the set of nodes that should
the position of the destination and to include it in the packet’s forward the packet (according to the used criteria). If yes, it will
destination address. Position-based routing thus does not require retransmit the packet. Otherwise, the packet will be dropped.
the establishment or maintenance of routes. Location services In restricted directional flooding, instead of selecting a single
can be classified according to how many nodes host the service. node as the next hop, several nodes participate in forwarding the
The position information can be collected in different ways .It packet in order to increase the probability of finding the shortest
can be collected from the direction and strength of the received path and get robust against the failure of individual nodes and
wireless signals and through interfacing with a low-power Global position inaccuracy.
Positioning System (GPS) and a satellite updating the positions
of the nodes by sending signals to this GPS device. B. Hierarchical Approaches
The third forwarding strategy is to form a hierarchy in order to
V. Packet Forwading Strategies scale to a large number of mobile nodes. Some strategies combine
There are three main packet-forwarding strategies used for the nodes location and hierarchical network structures by using the
position-based protocols. zone based routing. Others use the dominating set routing. Some
• Greedy forwarding others present a two level hierarchy within them; if the destination
• Restricted directional flooding is close to the sender (in number of hops), packets will be routed
• Hierarchical approaches. based on a proactive distance vector. Greedy routing is used in
long distance routing.
A. Greedy Forwarding
In this approach the protocols do not establish and retain paths VI. Position Based Routing Protocols
from source to the destination instead; a source node includes the
estimated position of the recipient in the data packet and selects the A. Location-Aided Routing (LAR)
next hop depending on the optimization criteria of the algorithm Ko and Vaidya presents the LAR protocol which utilizes location
i.e. the closest neighbor to the destination. Each intermediate node information to minimize the search space for route discovery
selects a next hop node until the packet reaches the destination. towards the destination node [1]. LAR aims to reduce the routing
In order for the nodes to be enable to do this, they periodically overhead for the route discovery and it uses the Global Positioning
broadcast small packets (called beacons) to announce their System (GPS) to obtain the location information of a node. LAR
position .Such an approach is scalable and flexible as it does not essentially describes how location information such as GPS can
need route discovery and maintenance with the topology change. be used to reduce the routing overhead in an ad hoc network
It has the disadvantage because the periodic beaconing creates lot and ensure maximum connectivity. Location-Aided Routing is
of congestion in the network and consumes node’s energy. The an example of restricted directional flooding routing protocols;
greedy routing may not always find the best possible route, even however, partial flooding is used in LAR for path discovery
it may fail to find a path between source and destination when one purpose. Hence, LAR proposes the use of position information
exists. An example of this problem is shown in fig. 2. The circle to enhance the route discovery phase of reactive Ad-Hoc routing
around S shows the transmission range of S. Note that there is approaches.
a valid path from S to D. The problem here is that S is closer to

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IJCST Vol. 3, Issue 4, Oct - Dec 2012 ISSN : 0976-8491 (Online) | ISSN : 2229-4333 (Print)

B. Most Forward Within Distance (MFR) F.Improvements to location-aided Routing Through

Some greedy position-based routing protocols, such as Most Directional Count Restrictions
Forward within distance R (MFR), try to minimize the number Colagrosso et al. aimed to reduce the control packet overhead
of hops by selecting the node with the largest progress from the by reducing duplicate route formation of packets [5]. The
neighbors, where progress is defined as the projection of the distance enhancements were proposed to the LAR Box algorithm which
of the next hop from the sender on the straight line between the was based on count restriction of rebroadcasts.
sender and the destination. As other greedy forwarding protocols,
MFR has the shortcomings of either not guaranteeing to find a G. Adaptive Location Aided Mobile Ad-Hoc Network
path to the destination or finding a path which is much longer than Routing (ALARM)
the shortest path. Moreover nodes periodically should broadcast The Adaptive Location Routing (ALARM) algorithm, by Boleng
beacons to announce their positions and enable other nodes and Camp, used feedback for adaptation and location information
maintain a one-hop neighbor table.MFR is the only progress-based for performance improvements [7]. The use of location information
algorithm competitive in terms of hop count .However, choosing increased efficiency of the protocol.
the node with the largest progress as the next hop will increase
the probability that the two nodes disconnected from each other H. A Region-Based Routing Protocol for Wireless Mobile
before the packet reaches the next hop. So, the packet drop rate Ad-Hoc Networks (REGR)
increases greatly, especially in highly mobile environments. Such The REGR protocol, proposed by Liu et al. [6]. It created a pre-
a situation is very common due to neighbor table inconsistency. routing region between the source and the destination there by
controlled the flooding of route request packets within this region.
C. Distance Routing Effect Algorithm for Mobility For the discovery of the optimal routes there was a correct selection
(DREAM) of the region, which was not too small.
Basagni et al. proposed the DREAM protocol which used the node
location information from GPS systems for communication [2]. I. Location Aided Knowledge Extraction Routing for
DREAM was a part proactive and part reactive protocol where Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (LAKER)
the source node sends the data packet ‘‘in the direction’’ of the Li and Mohapatra The LAKER protocol, by Li and Mohapatra,
destination node by selective flooding. The sender will broadcast minimized the network overhead during the route discovery process
the packet towards nodes in a limited sector of the network; to all by decreasing the zonal area in which route request packets were
single hop neighbors towards the destination. DREAM algorithm is forwarded.[8] During this process, LAKER extracted knowledge
a proactive protocol that uses a limited flooding of location update of the nodal density distribution of the network and remembered
messages Since DREAM uses the restricted directional flooding a series of ‘‘important’’ locations on the path to the destination.
to forward data packets themselves, there will be multiple copies These locations were named as ‘‘guiding routes’’ which simplified
of each packet at the same time. This increases the probability of the route discovery process.
using the optimal path; however, it decreases its scalability to large
networks with a high volume of data transmissions and makes it J. A Location-Based Routing Method for Mobile Ad-Hoc
more suitable for applications that require a high reliability and Networks
fast message delivery for infrequent data transmissions. Blazevic et al. proposed Terminode Routing, which combined
a location-based routing protocol called Terminode Remote
D. Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (GPSR) Routing (TRR) and a link state routing called Terminode Local
GPSR, by Karp and Kung proposed a protocol that used the Routing (TLR). [9]TRR was used for nodes located some distance
location of the node to selectively forward the packets based on the away from the source node, while TLR was used for local nodes.
distance.[3] The forwarding was carried out on a greedy basis by Terminode routing also used a unique flooding scheme called
selecting the node closest to the destination. The best path was also Restricted Local Flooding (RLF) for flooding control packets
calculated through a node which was farther in geometric distance during route discovery.
from the destination. A well known right hand rule was applied
to move around the obstacle and resume the greedy forwarding K.On-Demand Geographic Path Routing (OGPR)
as soon as possible. Giruka and Singhal proposed a geographic path routing protocol
which used greedy forwarding i.e. reactive route discovery and
E. Dynamic Route Maintenance (DRM) for Geographic source based routing instead of a location service to find the position
Forwarding of the destination.[10] It used a reactive route discovery and source
Chou et al. proposed a dynamic scheme to be used in geographic based routing. It was a hybrid protocol which incorporated the
forwarding algorithms in MANETs [4]. In beacon based protocols, effective techniques of other well known routing protocols for
each mobile node transmits periodic beacons to its neighbors to MANETs. OGPR constructed geographic paths to route packets
update and maintain its routing table. The beacons are generally between a source and a destination node.
forwarded at fixed intervals of time. During low mobility, a longer
interval would be the best as it would reduce control overhead L. Secure Position-Based Routing
while providing accurate location information. However, in cases Protocol Song et al. proposed a Secure Geographic Forwarding
of higher mobility, determining an appropriate beacon interval is (SGF) algorithm which provided source authentication, neighbor
rather difficult. In DRM, beacon interval and route information are authentication, and message integrity [11]. It was attached with a
carried out dynamically. Based on the node’s mobility information, Secure Grid Location Service (SGLS) to enable any receiver to
its beacon interval is computed while the route management verify the correctness of the location messages. SGF used both
function updates the routing table entries. The DRM algorithm greedy and directional flooding methods.
is applied to GPSR forwarding algorithm.

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M. Sociological Orbit Aware Location Approximation and routing protocols in large and dense MANETs Position-based
Routing (SOLAR) routing protocols avoid the flooding of control traffic by using
Ghosh et al. first proposed a macro level mobility framework location information.. One of the main advantages of position-
termed ORBIT [12]. It was a deterministic orbital movement based routing protocols is that they appear to scale well with
pattern of mobile users along specific places called hubs. The increasing network size since they do not need to maintain or
movement pattern was based on the fact that most mobile nodes communicate large routing tables. Another advantage relates
are not truly random in their movements but actually move around to the intelligent use of power. Ad-hoc networks of sensors
in an orbit from hub to hub. Each hub may be a rectangle and are characterized by a battery limited power budget. Position
movement may take place either inside a hub or in between hubs. information about neighboring nodes can be used to help modulate
Example orbital models discussed are random orbit, uniform orbit, the transmitted power and extend the useful lifetime of a sensor
restricted orbit, and overlaid orbit network

N. Load Balanced Local Shortest Path (LBLSP) Routing VIII. Comparison of Various Routing Protocols
Carlsson and Eager proposed a distributed routing algorithm which Here is the comparison of different routing protocols. Mobility
used both Local Shortest Path (LSP) and Weighted Distance Gain (DREAM) DREAM is a multi-path, location-aware routing
(WDG) to finalize the forwarding node. The two non-Euclidian protocol. In DREAM, each node knows its geographical coordinates
distance metrics provided load balanced routing around obstacles through a Global Positioning System (GPS). The coordinates are
and hotspots. periodically exchanged between each node and stored in a routing
table. The advantage of exchanging location information results
O. Geographic Landmark Routing (GLR) in less bandwidth consumption resulting in good scalability of
The GLR algorithm, by Na and Kim, solved the blind detouring this protocol. Location Aided Routing (LAR) is an improvement
problem and the triangular routing problem in MANETs.[20] to flooding algorithms to reduce overhead due to flooding. The
The blind detouring problem occurs when a packet arrives at a aim of LAR is to send the route requests only to a particular area
dead-end when the next node is blindly selected. expected to include the destination thereby decreasing overhead.
MFR has the shortcomings of either not guaranteeing to find a
P. Implementation Framework for Trajectory Based path to the destination or finding a path which is much longer
Routing (TBR) than the shortest path. LABAR a novel ad hoc routing approach
Yuksel et al. study various implementation issues of TBR in this for large-scale ad hoc networks using a combination of virtual
work. A proposed method encodes trajectories into packets at the backbone and directional routing approaches. LABAR does not
source node before sending them to the destination [21]. Bezier require all nodes in the ad hoc network to be precisely aware of
curves are utilized as possible path trajectories to efficiently their geographical location, i.e.to be equipped with GPS receivers,
forward the packets. These curves provide flexibility in the it is sufficient if only a subset of the nodes is enabled to determine
greedy forwarding of TBR with the possibility of multiple types their location. SPAAR is a routing protocol designed for a high-
of curves. risk MANET environment. In particular, SPAAR satisfies the
security requirements of the managed hostile environment by
Q. Secure Position Aided Ad-Hoc Routing (SPAAR) using protected position information to reduce routing overhead
It uses position information in order to improve the efficiency and and increase the security of routing. AODPR protocol ensures
security of mobile Ad-Hoc networks. It was designed for protecting the anonymity of both route and nodes and the robustness against
position information in managed hostile environment where the target-oriented attack and several others. This protocol is
security is a primary concernand uses geographical information to applicable to networks with any density of nodes.
make forwarding decisions, resulting in a significant reduction in Rob- Scalabi- Packet
the number of routing messages. It uses asymmetric cryptography Metric Type
ustness lity Overhead
to protect against malicious nodes (unauthorized nodes that attempt
Greedy
to disrupt the network)and attempts to minimize the potential for MFR Medi-um High Low
(Prog-ress)
damage of attacks from compromised nodes (authorized nodes
those have been overtaken by an adversary). Restricted
LAR Directional Low Mediu-m Medium
R. Location Area Based Ad-Hoc Routing for GPS-Scarce Flooding
Wide-Area Ad-Hoc Networks (LABAR) Restricted
LABAR is a combination of proactive and reactive protocols, since DREAM Directional High Mediu-m Medium
a virtual backbone structure is used to update location information Flooding
between G nodes (in a proactive manner), while user packets are Restricted
relayed using directional routing towards the direction zone of AODPR Directional Low Medium Medium
the destination [22]. Flooding
LABAR Hierarchical High High Low
VII. Advantages of Position Based Routing Protocols Restricted
Routing protocols that use node position information to assist SPAAR Directional Low Medium High
with routing are known as position-based routing protocols. In Flooding
such protocols, global routing decisions are made using local
knowledge of neighboring nodes and position information about
the destination node. Recent research has shown that position- Fig. 3: Comaprison of Different Routing Protocols
based routing protocols are good alternatives for topology based

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IX. Conclusion 2004.

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Computing Systems (ICSCS 2005), pp. 113-122, 2005.
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