The Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) is a routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and other wireless ad hoc networks. The vanilla AODV protocol is simple and easy to implement because it only uses the hop count as a routing metric. Single-metric route determination also causes problems, such as network congestion and energy exhaustion, which limit the usage of AODV in resource-limited applications. To solve these problems, the authors propose a new routing protocol that combines the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the entropy weight method (EWM), and AODV. The proposed protocol uses energy, congestion, and the hop count as metrics and weights these three metrics using AHP and EWM. To address the importance of energy in applications, such as drones, the proposed protocol chooses different comparison matrices for AHP at different node residual energy levels. Finally, the node chooses the best route link according to the score (sum of weighted metrics). It is also suitable for wireless sensor networks because the proposed protocol considers the residual energy of the node. The simulation results show that the improved routing protocol can effectively reduce the average end-to-end delay and energy consumption and prolong the lifetime of the whole network.
Keywords: AODV; analytic hierarchy process (AHP); entropy weight method (EWM); mobile ad hoc network; route link selection.