Opportunistic Routing Using Prioritized Forwarders with Retransmission Control

Abstract In ad hoc networks, broadcast-based forwarding protocols called opportunistic routing have been proposed. In general backoff-based opportunistic routing protocols, each receiver autonomously makes a forwarding decision using a random backoff time based on logical distance. However, each potential forwarder must wait for the expiration of the backoff timer before the packet forwarding. Moreover, they cannot gain forwarding path diversity in sparse environments. In this paper, we propose a novel forwarder selection method for opportunistic routing. In the proposed method, a terminal called, a prioritized forwarder, and which is selected from among neighbours and can forward packets without using the backoff time. In addition, we integrate a hop-by-hop retransmission control in the proposed method, which improves the packet transmission success rate in sparse environments. We evaluate the proposed method in comparison with the conventional protocols in computer simulations.