Mutation Based Hybrid Routing Algorithm for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Mobile Adhoc NETworks (MANETs) usually present challenges such as a highly dynamic topology due to node mobility, route rediscovery process, and packet loss. This leads to low throughput, a lot of energy consumption, delay and low packet delivery ratio. In order to ensure that the route is not rediscovered over and over, multipath routing protocols such as Adhoc Multipath Distance Vector (AOMDV) is used in order to utilize the alternate routes. However, nodes that have low residual energy can die and add to the problem of disconnection of network and route rediscovery. This paper proposes a multipath routing algorithm based on AOMDV and genetic mutation. It takes into account residual energy, hop count, congestion and received signal strength for primary route selection. For secondary path selection it uses residual energy, hop count, congestion and received signal strength together with mutation. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm gives better performance results compared to AOMDV by 11% for residual energy, 45% throughput, 3% packet delivery ratio, and 63% less delay.