Adaptive link caching for dynamic source routing - A simulation study

Abstract

In Dynamic Source Routing protocol (DSR) for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) caching is an important issue because it can make use of the known routing information to improve performance. In the design of caching schemes, the cache timeout, the time period that a link should stay in the cache, is very important and has high impact on the performance. However, only a few works have been done on how to determine the cache timeouts which can adapt to the change of link status. In this thesis, an adaptive link caching scheme for DSR is proposed and evaluated through simulation. The proposed scheme suggests nodes to predict a link's lifetime, Tp, estimate the link availability, L(Tp), and use Tp x L(Tp) to determine the cache timeout for the link before it is added into the cache. This cache timeout can reflect the future link status and is helpful in choosing reliable routes so that the performance of DSR can be improved.