Multipath routing backbones for load balancing in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Effective load balancing has been a challenging task in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) due to their dynamic and unpredictable behaviour and topology change. This paper presents a new approach based on multipath routing backbones for enhanced load balancing in MANETs. Nodes in MANETs greatly differ with each other in terms of communication and processing capabilities. In the proposed approach, multiple routing backbones are identified from source to destination using intermediate nodes that have better communication and processing capabilities to take part in the mobile routing backbones and efficiently participate in the routing process. In addition to enhanced load balancing, the new approach also provides better Quality of Service (QoS) support and congestion control according to current network traffic levels and nodes' processing loads. Simulation results show that this approach improves network throughput and packet delivery ratio and reduces end-to-end delay considerably by directing traffic through lowly congested multiple routing backbones that are rich in resources.