Energy Aware Path Selection based Efficient AODV

for MANETs

Muhammad Khalid Riaz Fan Yangyu Imran Akhtar

School of Electronics and Information School of Electronics and Information School of Electronics and Information
Northwestern Polytechnical University Northwestern Polytechnical University Northwestern Polytechnical University
Xi’an, CHINA Xi’an, CHINA Xi’an, CHINA
khalid.riaz@mail.nwpu.edu.cn fan_yangyu@nwpu.edu.cn imranakhtar@mail.nwpu.edu.cn

Abstract— In Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANETs)
during the process of routing the consumption of energy
remains a challenge as mobile nodes have limited battery.
We propose method for increasing the lifetime of the
network and minimizing the link breakages by choosing
the paths for routing, with more available energy. In this
paper we propose two schemes based on Adhoc On-
Demand Distance Vector (AODV), a reactive routing
protocol. In both these schemes, to reduce the control
packets overhead, limited mobile nodes can be the part of
the routing process. This limitation is based on the
received signal strength. The energy efficient available
path in terms of residual energy is selected either by the
destination node or by intermediate node locally. The
simulation results show that our proposed schemes results
in the energy efficient routing as compared to traditional
AODV.
Keywords—MANET; AODV; Reactive Routing; Received
Signal Strength; Residual Energy
I. INTRODUCTION
Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANETs) being wireless and
having no fixed infrastructure have gained a lot of interest
recently. MANET applications range from the commercial to
the tactical/military applications. MANETs are usually
multihop networks with spatially distant source and
destination nodes. Hence, multihop routing plays a significant
role in the MANETs. While designing the routing protocols,
there remain the substantial consideration of constraints i.e.
the limitation of battery power and lifetime, Quality of Service
(QoS), changing topologies of the network due to the node’s
mobility and security threats [1-3]. Furthermore, the emphasis
in [4-6] is that once the node’s battery has been exhausted, the
node behaves as dead node. Hence, more research is needed
on the challenge of limited energy resource in MANETs. On
demand or reactive routing, table based or proactive routing
and hybrid routing are the major type of routing protocols to
route data between the nodes in the MANETS [7] , [8].
For the improvement of routing by predicting and
stabilizing the routes in the adhoc networks, different link
availability and the energy aware approaches have been
proposed. The sharing of the load and controlling transmission
power approach are the foremost techniques used while node
is communicating to limit the depletion of energy [9]. The
authors in [10], proposed two techniques for the prediction of
link availability to restrict the control packets for finding the
stable routes. Within the locality, these techniques allow only
selected nodes for the flow of routing packets. In [11], authors
presented an Adhoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV)
based algorithm, which computes the node residual energy
and select the path based on the existing matrices and total
energy of the path. During the process of route selection, the
path with the highest available energy gets the priority. The
authors in [12], proposed a model for the consumption of
energy based on predefined threshold (θ). If the available
power of node is greater than the θ, then as usual it react to the
Route Request (RREQ) packet, else the request us rejected.
Energy Level Based Routing Protocol (ELBRP) is proposed in
[13]. In this protocol forwarding of packets is done by using
different techniques on the base of node’s level of energy. In
[14], a reactive protocol enhancement is proposed. In this
protocol, route between nodes made reliable by computing a
factor. This factor is based on expiration of route and link and
use the count of hops. In [9], the authors select the path which
is shorter in terms of hops and have more energy than other
paths for increasing the lifetime of network. In the proposed
method the intermediate nodes are selected based on technique
in [12]. The final route selection is consider the lifetime of
route and the hop count.
The AODV, a reactive routing protocol, is the mostly used
MANET routing protocol for routing packets between mobile
nodes of the network [15]. In this paper, modifications of
classical AODV routing protocol has been proposed for longer
network lifetime. These modifications rely on the residual
energy of neighboring nodes and the received signal strength
to minimize the control packet flooding.
The rest of the paper has been structured such that in
section II, system model is discussed. The proposed MANET
routing protocol is discussed in Section III. In Section IV
result and analysis of these simulations is presented and we
conclude in section V.

978-1-5386-7729-2/19/$31.00©2019 IEEE

Proceedings of 2019 16th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 1040
Islamabad, Pakistan, 8th – 12th January, 2019
 II. SYSTEM MODEL
In the Fig. 1 a rectangular field is shown, in which
randomly distributed finite nodes formed an adhoc network.
The φ represents a stationary Poisson Point Process (PPP)
having λ density on a rectangular shaped network of area |A| ϵ
ℝ2 . The average number of nodes in the area are γ = λ|A|. The
total number of nodes are given by φ(A) = n with
probability .
 | A | n
 P ( ( A  n)  exp( ) 
n!  
The communication mode for the nodes in the network is
single-input single-output method. In case of larger distances
multiple hops are used. Only considering the channel fading
and path loss, the received signal power at any node can be
given by (2).
Pt X
 Pr  
d   zone nodes. We selected the lower and upper threshold values
Where Pt represents the transmit power, fading is
characterized by X while source node to the receiving node
Euclidian distance is resented by d and α represents the path
loss exponent.
In the network, around every node there exists a Circular
Region(CR) of radius R, which consist of that source node and
randomly distributed nodes ai, where i depends on λ. Let R be
the source node broadcast range. When the source node want
to send some data, it first look for the destination in the CR i.e.
in its one hop range. In the case of spatially distant nodes, for
tracking the path to the destination node, the source node
broadcasts RREQ packet. In our proposed method, RREQ is
processed by selected neighboring nodes. This selection
process is explained in section III.
A. Energy Model
In the network every node consumes little amount of energy
in the process of transmitting or receiving. As in MANETs,
these nodes get energy from attached battery, which is initially
fully charged. The charge level of the battery reduces within
the process of node participation in the communication
activities of the network, which can be given as
  E (t )  E (t  1)  (etx  st 1 )  (erx  st 1 )  
 destination will initiate a RREP, otherwise rejects it. When
Fig. 1. System Model(Node Distribution)
Proceedings of 2019 16th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 8th – 12th January, 2019
Where E(t) represents the remaining energy at time t, st-1 are
the data bytes transmit at time t-1, for the transmission of data
byte etx is the energy required and erx is the amount of energy
consumed for reception of the data byte.
III. PROPOSED METHOD
A. Proposed Scheme 1
Using the idea for the estimation of zone [10], the area of
transmission around each node is divided, on the base of
received signal strength from the sender, into three different

zones, named as the inner zone, the middle zone and the outer
zone. This classification limits the control packet flooding. In
the MANETs, nodes are moving constantly, so topology of the
network changes dynamically. To compensate this issue we
are ignoring outer zone nodes as it helps to avoid partitioning
of certain part of network (Certain nodes). As the critical
nodes are mostly present in the outer zone. Without the loss of
generality, the inner zone nodes can be ignored to decrease the
hops in route discovery. Here, we are considering nodes
within the received signal strength threshold values i.e. middle
of received single strength to restrict the nodes within inner
and outer zones in the route finding.
An energy field named N_Energy is also added in the
RREQ packet header. Before broadcasting the RREQ packet,
every intermediate node adds its residual energy in that
N_Energy field. At the destination node average energy of the
route is calculated by
N _ Energy
Eavg  
 NH   
Where, Eavg depict the average residual energy of the path,
N_energy represent the total residual energy of a route stored
in N_energy field of received RREQ at the destination and NH
is the total number of hops.
When RREQ packet reach, the destination node instead of
responding to the first received RREQ, it wait for more RREQ
packets. The wait time is 3 x NODE_TRAVERSAL_TIME
[16]. Then the Route Reply packet (RREP) is sent by the node
on the path which has the highest average energy value. This
path is stored in the destination routing table. If another RREQ
is received by the destination node, it calculates the average
energy value and compare it with the stored one. If new
RREQ has higher energy value than the stored value, the
new RREP is received by the source node, it will store the
new path for backup in case of failure. In the case of route
discovery failure, the threshold values will be changed to
extend the middle zone. This scheme is illustrated in Fig. 2.
B. Proposed Scheme 2
Node selection process in this scheme is same as scheme 1
i.e. this scheme also allow only middle zone nodes to take part
in routing process and store the residual energy of the node in
N_Energy.
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 For the RREQ packets the dynamic delay is used. The
values of the delay is dependent on the average energy of the
path. In this scheme, an inverse relationship exist between the
delay time and average energy of the path. So, nodes receiving
RREQ from the paths with higher average energy will cause
less delay on the transmission of routing packets.
Traditionally, random amount of delay is used in AODV
protocol, but we have used a different computation method for
the delay. For illustration, the delay for a RREQ from a path
having average energy of 70 joules will be (1/(70x10)) =
0.00143 sec approximately. And the delay for a RREQ from a
path having average energy of 90 joules will be (1/(90x10)) =
0.00111, which is less than the previously calculated delay.
Therefore, with the use of this approach, the destination node
receive the RREQ packets form paths having greater
remaining energy more quickly as compared to other
intermediate nodes. This result in the more reliable
communication as paths with more energy take part in routing.
IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Using the Network Simulator NS2.35 tool, we performed a
Fig. 2. Proposed scheme 1 graphical illustration
series of experiments to validate the proposed schemes and
When a RREQ reached to the intermediate node i, it calculates compare it with the traditional AODV. A constant bit rate with
the average energy value of the received RREQ by using the the packet size of 1000 is applied. The ratios of the
path energy and the number of hops. transmission power, the reception power, the sleep power and
the idle power are 1.35, 1.0, 0.01 and 0.7 watts, respectively.
100J is the initial node energy. Rest of the parameters and
N _ Energy
 avg _ energy (i )    threshold
 values are presented in Table 1. Randomly
NH generated networks are used for simulations. The proposed
schemes are compared with the existing AODV protocol and
After calculating avg_energy(i) for a path, it stores the value is analyzed in terms of bandwidth of control overhead, routing
in its routing table and waits for time t for reception of other packets count, route error packet count in the network,
RREQ. If new RREQ has higher avg_energy(i) than the stored remaining residual energy of source node, average route
path, it will be stored otherwise node simply rejects the new length and ratio of packet delivery.
RREQ. After time t, the node will prepare the RREQ for the
stored path by adding its residual energy in N_Energy. In case TABLE I. PARAMETERS FOR SIMULATION
of route discovery failure, the threshold values will be Parameter Value
changed to extend the middle zone. Where t can be calculated
by: Area of simulation 1000m x 1000m
Simulation time 100s
1 Number of nodes 20-80
 t   Initial node energy 100J
10  avg _ energy (i ) Mobility Speed 20 - 50mps
Propagation model Free space
Mac protocol IEEE802.11
Antenna Model Omni Antenna
Mobility model Random waypoint
Physical radio layer type IEEE802.11b
Upper threshold value for -27 dBm
inner zone
Lower threshold value for -78 dBm
outer zone

A. Control Bandwidth
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show comparison of proposed schemes
over AODV with different number of node in terms of

Proceedings of 2019 16th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 1042
Islamabad, Pakistan, 8th – 12th January, 2019
Fig. 3. Variation in control bandwidth at velocity 20 m/s Fig. 5. Variation in control overhead at velocity 20 m/s

Fig. 4. Variation in control bandwidth at velocity 50 m/s Fig. 6. Variation in control overhead at velocity 50 m/s

the bandwidth utilized by the control packets. As the limited Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 depicts the generation of RERR in different
numbers of nodes are allowed to take part in the route finding, speed scenarios. The analysis show that the substantial
reduction of the RERR packets using proposed schemes.
so the control packet flooding in the network is lesser which
results in the less flow of control packet. Hence, bandwidth
requirement get lower. In this situation, proposed scheme 2
shows greater reduction in consumption of control bandwidth.
B. Control Overhead
As the control packet flooding is limited, the overhead for
the routing is becomes lower, this is shown in Fig. 5 and Fig.
6. Proposed improvements on AODV have more impact on a
low density networks. Variation in the speed of nodes also
affects the processing, but overall control overhead decreases
as compared to AODV.
C. Route Error
As forwarding of the routing packets are done only by the
links having greater residual energy as compared to other
paths. So, the selected path has better availability time with
the less link breakage probability. This results less number of
Route Error (RERR) packets generation.
Fig. 7. Variation in Route Error packets at velocity 20 m/s

Proceedings of 2019 16th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 1043
Islamabad, Pakistan, 8th – 12th January, 2019
 Fig. 10. Average packet delivery ratio using velocity 20 m/s
Fig. 8. Variation in Route Error packets at velocity 50 m/s

D. Source node residual energy

Fig. 9 shows the change in the residual energy of the source
node with time in the scenario of 50 nodes. Due to less control
overhead of proposed schemes, the remaining residual energy
of nodes is greater as compared to the AODV.
E. Packet delivery ratio
The ratio of packets effectively reach at the destination
compared with the packets sent for destination by the source
node is depicted by the Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). From
Fig. 10, we can conclude that proposed schemes has less
number of packet drops as compare to original AODV. As in
the proposed schemes adequate amount of energy is saved, the
network path stays stable and available for a long time, so
more packets get delivered.
F. Average Route length
To compare the path length in terms of number of hops, the
simulation is performed on 50 mobile nodes with increasing Fig. 11. Average hop count using 50 nodes
velocity from 20 to 80 m/s over the same area of the network.
As paths with higher residual energy will have higher
lifetime, so it is stable path. By selecting stable path in terms
of lifetime may result in the increase of length of the path.
Same scenario is depicted in Fig.11. Both the proposed
schemes resulted in the increment of the length of the path and
the number of hop increment are approximately same. In the
proposed scheme 1, a hop increment of about 7% is observed
over the existing AODV protocol. But the increment in the
length of the path for proposed scheme 2 reaches almost 10%
for low velocity. The route length is not highly affected with
increase in velocity.

Fig. 9. Source node residual energy using 50 nodes
V. CONCLUSION
MANETs are distributed networks that perform multihop
communication within the network without any central
controller. Due to mobility of nodes, recurrent changes in
topology arise, that affect the data transmission and result in

Proceedings of 2019 16th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 1044
Islamabad, Pakistan, 8th – 12th January, 2019
the overall network performance reduction. In the article, the
issue of the stable path selection is discussed and proposed
two schemes to select the energy efficient path. In the
proposed scheme 1, the path is selected by the destination
while in the proposed scheme 2, a local path selection
algorithm is designed. To get the analysis of the proposed
schemes, they are compared with AODV. Simulations are
performed and comparison is presented in terms in terms of
bandwidth of control overhead, routing packets count, route
error packet count in the network, remaining residual energy
of source node, average route length and ratio of the packet
delivery. All these analysis show that AODV gets benefit from
proposed schemes in achieving greater lifetime of the paths,
reduction in RERR packets and routing overhead reduction.
This results in better network lifetime.
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