A Power-Aware River Formation Dynamics Routing Algorithm for Enhanced Longevity in MANETs

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are made up of battery-powered wireless devices that create an ad hoc network for communication. The power used by these devices can be very high since their batteries are limited and their topology fluctuates. This makes energy consumption and network longevity critical issues to be considered for routing algorithms in MANETs. This research aims to minimise energy consumption and extend the network's longevity among MANET nodes. This paper introduces the Power-aware River Formation Dynamics Routing Algorithm (PRFDRA); an algorithm that uses energy offerings in its path selection mechanism. The PRFDRA mechanism is based on river formation dynamics (RFD), a water metaheuristic. The algorithm finds the iteration's best solution, the shortest path between any origin and end point in MANETs, based on a cost function that incorporates factors which include energy, number of hops, and time delay, with energy having the highest weight factor. The mechanisms for determining the probability of choosing a node and the erosion of nodes that cater for a neighbour with positive, negative, and flat gradients also incorporate these factors. Also, the mechanisms for determining the gradient of a path, the computation of the sediment of a drop added to the altitude of a node, and the computation of the altitudes of nodes incorporate these same factors. PRFDRA outperformed EMBO, RFD, AODV, and DSDV in packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, energy consumption, and network lifetime in NS-3 simulations. Importantly, in terms of variation in node speeds, the energy consumption and network lifetime improvement rates of PRFDRA over EMBO, RFD, AODV, and DSDV, respectively, are 7.54 joules and 62.74 seconds, 5.10 joules and 68.76 seconds, 15.70 joules and 315.90 seconds, and 21.43 joules and 351.35 seconds. In terms of variation in terrain dimension, the energy consumption and network lifetime improvement rates of PRFDRA over EMBO, RFD, AODV, and DSDV, respectively, are 2.91 joules and 50.34 seconds, 6.32 joules and 128.44 seconds, 18.02 joules and 255.01 seconds, and 22.56 joules and 302.04 seconds. The results reveal that incorporating energy-proficient and RFD mechanisms in the path selection significantly minimises energy consumption while enhancing network longevity. As future work, PRFDRA can be enhanced with fuzzy logic and cloud-assisted techniques.