Cross Layer Solution for Energy and Delay Optimization in MANETs

A novel method for packet forwarding in MANETs has been proposed in this paper. A node in the network acts as both host and router. Energy utilization of the node increases as all nodes in MANET operate as source, destination, and router to forward packets to the next hop ultimately to reach destination. Routers execute a variety of functions from simple packet classification for forwarding to complex payload revision. As the number of tasks and complexity increases, processing time required also increases resulting in significant processing delay in routers. The proposed work optimizes packet header at transport and network layer by calculating Unique Identifier using pairing function for the fields which do not change for a source–destination pair. This technique optimizes the processing cost of each packet header thereby conserving energy and reducing delay. It also simplifies the task of system administration. This paper elucidates an extension to basic AODV protocol, allowing routing of most packets without an explicit header, reducing the overhead of the protocol while still conserving its basic properties. The proposed method improves the network performance significantly compared to AODV, MTPR, and S-AODV protocol.