Proxy-assisted routing for efficient data transmission in mobile ad hoc networks

While on-demand routing protocols have been optimized to use the aid of proxy nodes by considering the possibility of long-lived partitions due to intermittent connectivity, they do not consider the chances of using a proxy for a long distance between a pair of source and destination. In this paper, we introduce a Proxy-Assisted Routing (PART) for efficient data transmission by selecting a proxy node for every path length that is longer than the predefined value between a source and destination. Whenever route errors occur between a source node and proxy node, or a proxy node and destination node, the proxy node repairs a broken route locally by redirecting a new route to the source or destination node. To reduce routing overhead, we delineate a broadcasting zone, where nodes are only allowed to broadcast request packets within the predefined zone to the proxy. Furthermore, unicast transmission is used for the proxy selection process using IP address information at the MAC layer. When we evaluate the performance metrics through simulations, PART significantly reduces the normalized routing load by almost 55% and the packet losses by almost 30%, and increases throughput almost 70% if compared to the traditional routing protocols.