Node-Disjoint multipath routing with zoning method in MANETs

Multipath routing is one of the most important research directions in the area of network routing. However, it is very difficult to achieve node-disjoint multipath routing in Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs), especially in large scale MANETs. We propose a Multiple Zones-based routing protocol (M-Zone for short) to discover node-disjoint routing paths segment-by-segment in large scale MANETs effectively. M-Zone uses a multiple zoning method based on location to guarantee that the nodes in multiple routes are different apart from the source and the destination. We propose two approaches to maintain the routes: one is local route maintenance and the other is global route maintenance. Simulation studies show that the average path length of M-Zone is close to that of GZRP, which combines the Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) and Global Positioning System (GPS). The average packet delivery ratio of M-Zone is significantly higher than that of GZRP. © 2008 IEEE.