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Procedia Computer Science 47 (2015) 400 407

Efficient Packet Transmission and Energy Optimization in Military Operation

Scenarios of MANET
J Sandeepa, J Satheesh Kumarb1
a
Research Scholar, bAssistant Professor
Dept. of Computer Application, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, 641046, India

Abstract
In recent years mobile ad hoc network has gained popularity with its wide range of applications. This has result into number of contributions toward the
challenges of bring reliability in the network and enhance its packet transmission performance. Military and rescue operations are one of t he highly
sensitive applications of MANET. The objective of this research was to identify the networking gaps in MANET for military scenarios and enhance
networks efficiency based on networks demand. This paper presents three different network situations and possible solutions. These approaches were
analyzed with network simulations using NS2. The results of simulation have reflected positively for all three approaches. In the first case, the
responsibility of cluster head was shared by dual cluster heads which reduces the energy consumption of cluster head by 12.4 %. The second case study
identifies critical nodes and network was optimized to improve the life time of these critical nodes. Finally in the third case, study an enhanced
architecture was analyzed which performs better at different mobility scenarios with an average of 1.41% higher packet delivery ratio.

Published
by Elsevier
B.V. B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
2015
2015The
TheAuthors.
Authors.
Published
by Elsevier
Peer-review
under responsibility of organizing committee of the Graph Algorithms, High Performance Implementations and Applications
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
(ICGHIA2014).
Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of the Graph Algorithms, High Performance Implementations

and Applications (ICGHIA2014)

Keywords: MANET; Rebroadcasting; Clustered Network, Wireless Networks; Military Networks;

* 1Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-422-2428347 ;

E-mail address: jsathee@rediffmail.com

1877-0509 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of the Graph Algorithms, High Performance Implementations and Applications (ICGHIA2014)
doi:10.1016/j.procs.2015.03.223

J. Sandeep and J. Satheesh Kumar / Procedia Computer Science 47 (2015) 400 407

1.

Introduction

Effective communication can help the decision makers to work together in common framework that can
help military force to achieve rapid, concurrent discovery of enemy activity and disposition military
operations. Usual communication networks have the vulnerabilities of military operation site scenarios like
unpredictable movement of nodes, limited resources, and lack of infrastructure1. MANET has nodes to
form a virtual infrastructure and overcome the vulnerability of war and disaster site scenarios2. It is widely
used at locations where the fixed infrastructure for communication has been destroyed or impossible
situations such as earthquake3, flood4, fire explosions5, plane/air rash and the area of disaster and natural
calamities.
MANET was used in military for communication where the armed soldiers (data units) engaged in the
battle field such as fighter planes, tankers, and missile ships. It has the ability to handle dynamic topological
changes, communicate in the lack of any fixed infrastructure and faster and easier implementation of
network in emergency sites. MANET performance in any environment depends on the applied architecture
and its protocol suite. To improve networks performance, different protocols have been suggested in
literature6,7. Military environment has its own critical requirement that needs enhancement of MANET
protocols which can ensure the involved risk. Military operations can come across critical and unpredictable
situations in times so it becomes important to analyze the protocols with different serious situations. As a
contribution in this work, a case study was made with few possible military operation scenarios.
Enhancement to existing approaches where discussed with the real time war field scenario and military
operation sites. This paper presents three different case studies for highly influencing network attributes.
2.

Case I : Advantages of Load Sharing

Effective Military operations are carried out in localities where there is no infrastructure and backup
support for available resources. Workload of any node in MANET depends on the criticality of its position
in high traffic8. Some scenarios increase the workload of individual nodes and drains out its limited
resource. Selecting an alternative path to reduce the load of individual and improves lifetime of such nodes
at high traffic. Sharing network responsibilities among efficient devices can further improve the
performance of any network9.
In military operations, each data has importance at the risk of human life. This makes it important for the
network to be reliable in its communication. Any implication of workload sharing cannot be risked at the
cost of its reliability10. Thus it becomes critical to share the workload on the sharp edge of networks
reliability. In an example scenario (shown in fig. 1), the importance of sharing the workload to improve the
lifetime of node with high traffic has been discussed.

Fig. 1. War field scenario: In scenario A the soldiers are communicated with a normal networking, the scenario B is with load sharing
networking.

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In fig. 1, two similar network scenarios (A & B) are presented with high energy at initial time T 1.
Scenario A represents the existing routing approach and scenario B represents network which shares
workload of a node with high traffic to extend lifespan of such critical nodes. Every node in the network
consumes energy for its transactions and this happens to be at a proportion of its communication load. At a
time Tn , the energy consumed by both the scenarios can be visualized for both the scenarios.
In scenario A, uneven workload distribution among the nodes at high traffic increases the possibility of
nodes battery exhaustion with its repeated usage. The node gets exhaust at early because of high traffic and
workload. Loss of any node results into the loss of its consequent links to other neighbors11. In scenario A,
an exhaust node result into the connection loss of its end neighbor node from the network. Scenario A
represents, leaf node exposed to risk of life because of the uneven energy flow in the network. Thus at a
time Tn, the network becomes unreliable for the critical situation as shown in Scenario A. In Scenario B
with optimized and shared workload, life time of the network increases and network remains reliable for
longer time. Consider a war field scenario (Scenario A) where lack of workload sharing with in cluster
reduces the life time of the network. These situation leads to the importance of optimization in ad hoc
networks as shown in fig. 1. To analyze the advantage of workload sharing, a critical military network was
formed and simulated using network simulator (NS2)12 .
2.1.

Simulations and Results

To study the importance of shared workload, a network was formed with 50 nodes geographically
clustered into four groups. Every node was provided with limited energy, bandwidth and fixed
communication range. Nodes were allowed to exchange packets with its neighbors. Distance node
communicated with multi-hop transmissions. Packets of size 512 bytes were transmitted at 1 Mbps data
rate. CBR traffic was used for the transmission of packets inside the network. Each cluster elects a cluster
head which is loaded with the responsibility of evaluating efficient route between source and destination.
Cluster heads were also responsible for monitoring the member nodes, respond to route request and cluster
maintains. In the first scenario, cluster performs its network transactions with single cluster head as shown
in fig. 2 (a).

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Simulation scenario generated with (a). Single cluster head (b). Dual cluster head

In another developed scenario, existing work has been made to improve the networks performance by
sharing the workload of master node among primary and secondary masters as shown in fig. 2 (b). Sharing
the workload among the master nodes reduces its packet processing overheads and increases the lifetime of
master node. This approach also increases the availability of master node for its member request
processing.
The result of simulation is presented in Fig. 3 which shows that all the masters in the generated scenario
were consuming less energy for dual cluster head approach compare to single cluster head approach. It also

J. Sandeep and J. Satheesh Kumar / Procedia Computer Science 47 (2015) 400 407

shows that energy consumed by the cluster head has been reduced which increases its life time. The
average differences in energy consumption at dual cluster head approaches have been identified as 0.418
joules lesser.
Energy Consumption

Dual CH

Single CH

Energy in Joules

5
4
3
2

1
0
Master 1 (25)

Master 2 (49)

Master 3 (45)

Master 4 (8)

Clusterhead to the Network

Fig. 3. Comparison of Simulation Results for the Two Scenarios.

3.

Case II : Increase the Lifetime of Weak Nodes

In military operations, MANET nodes connect different source of data. The node connecting the source
of critical data also becomes vital to the network13. This brings the need for special attention towards the
life of such nodes. To illustrate the criticality of such a network, an example scenario has been discussed.
Based on the analysis, a contribution was made towards the enhancement of protocol for improving the
lifetime of weak nodes14, 15.
In fig. 4, an example scenario is visualized where nine mobile nodes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I) form
an ad hoc network. Node A was assumed to be connected with some data sources and the nodes E and F
connected with critical data source. The inner circle of each node shows the available energy at every node.
Source 2: Critical Data
Source 1: Data
I

F
H

C
Source 3: Critical Data
Fig. 4. A Critical Scenario where node F have low power responsible for collecting critical data.

Consider a scenario in which Commanders are connected through MANET devices and operating from
different localities. Let, commander X able to gets control to see every movement of the militants. In this
situation, this commander X becomes a vital node to get critical data for the network. Optimization of
communication algorithms to handle this situation improves the standard of military operations. In any
existing communication approach, irrespective of nodes low energy level, it participates in all network
activities resulting into early drain up of node connecting critical data. Optimization with an effective and
efficient approach can increase the lifetime of such nodes and helps in receiving critical data for longer
period of time.
In this approach, an enhanced ant colony based method was used to improve the life time of vital nodes.
Nodes which rapidly loses its energy or which is left with low energy are identified and their workloads

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were limited for critical transactions. Once a weak node is identified, the algorithm limits packet
transactions through these nodes. In the network, priority of packet increases when there is repeated request
for the same packet id. Increased priority of the packet allows it to be transmitted through weak nodes. The
algorithm allows the weak node to make a mutual bonding with its frequently accessed neighbor. In this
phase, the node shares its table information with the tie up neighbor. The information is used by the
neighbor for networks update and transactions. The tie up neighbor shares the workload of the weak node
and increases the life time of the weak node.
3.1.

Simulation and Results

Nodes with very less residual energy were considered as weak or ill node of the network. These nodes
are not reliable for networks transaction. Scenarios which conclude with weak nodes in the network were
generated using network simulator NS2. The simulation was executed for AODV with ant colony based
routing algorithm and for enhanced ant colony based algorithm with an intensive care for weak nodes.
In the experiment, 20 nodes were randomly spread in an area of 1000 square meters and traffic was
generated between few of the nodes. In the first simulation, network was simulated for ant colony based
routing protocol. Result shows more number of packet drops in the network and even critical nodes got
exhausted in the process. The same scenario when executed for the proposed approach, it increases the
productivity at critical scenarios with higher packet delivery ratio. The proposed network selects alternate
route whenever the intermediate node goes low with its energy. At the end of the executions, the network
with proposed approach has higher number of nodes alive.
MANET protocols focus on selecting shortest and efficient paths for its transactions. Network with such
protocols performs well at energy efficient network scenarios whereas at energy critical scenarios they fail
to perform. The proposed work proves efficient transactions at energy critical scenarios. Energy
consumption of participating nodes is shown in table 1. It shows that every node participated in the
transaction because of the intensive care to the weak nodes have extended their availability for long term
critical data services. The result of simulation is presented in table 1 which illustrate how the proposed
approach has outperform the ant colony based routing protocol when the network has energy critical
situation. Node 15, 6, 12 in the existing approach have exhausted routing overload where as the proposed
approach has selected alternative path to reduce the overload of critical nodes.
Table 1. Residual energy of the nodes participating in the routing process.
Residual Energy
Nodes

4.

Existing Approaches

Enhanced Approach

15 (Source)

0.001

3.75

0.79

1.93

12

0.063

1.59

11.933

7.34

10

3.20

4.41

7.89

6.72

16 (Destination)

11.62

9.70

Case III : Network Monitoring to Be Reliable in Crisis Situations

In MANET, nodes work in teams for its transactions where the nodes which drain its energy is no longer
usable to the network. Mobility of nodes results into dynamic change in its topology where this dynamism
can also be consequence of variation in signal quality, lose or addition of a node to the network 16. It
influences the network to be monitored for its every change in size, state and performance. Monitoring
helps in analyzing these changes and design new enhanced protocols to overcome the situations17. MANET
is entirely a self managing network which usually not requires any human intervention which makes it
compatible with management operations. Several management solutions have been proposed in literatures

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for the organization and management of MANET devices18. Application in emergency and disaster
situation, bear external management and monitoring to optimize networks constraints19.
Nadia et al., (2014) presented four categories of monitoring issues in mobile ad hoc network. The
survivability issues include robustness, minimal human intervention, scalability, distribution of storage
load, and distribution of control load. The resource consumption issue includes energy consumption,
bandwidth consumption, etc. Critical use issue includes the timeliness and accuracy related monitoring
issues. Lastly the security category includes issues like confidentiality, authentication, and privacy etc.
Case study 1 and 2 shows the enhancement made in the existing protocols to improve the efficiency of
network to handle the resource consumption issues. This study analyzes survivability issue in MANET.
Mobile ad hoc network used for military communication are vulnerable for its unpredictable movement,
lack of centralized infrastructure and limitation of resources. Mission critical characteristic of military
operations calls for efficient reliable multi-hop communication protocol in MANET20.
In military operation, size and complexity of the network has increased with the popularity of network
centric warfare. This has influenced the need for enhancements of organization and management
approaches in MANET. There have been many design and developments in MANET architecture to
overcome the complexity of large networks. Most of the approaches perform routing based on cluster heads
information table.
In general, larger networks form cluster to optimize networks control overhead 21, 22. Routing in such
network was carried based on the cluster head information. Inter-cluster routing in cluster head dependent
network is performed between source and destination through cluster head. Source node requests cluster
head for destination nodes route. Cluster head node forwards the route request to the destination nodes
cluster head as shown in fig. 5. This study considers routing architecture used in clustered MANET. The
existing approach has been modified with enhanced gateway nodes that can also respond to the route
request packet. In the modified approach, gateway nodes of the existing model have been enhanced to
maintain the information of its n hop neighbors (Hop distance between the node and cluster head). In
addition to the neighbor information, gateway node also maintains the route to other gateway nodes and
information table illustrating gateway connected to the cluster. Every route request in the network is
broadcasted by the source node up to n hop distance. This request is forwarded based on cluster head
information and for some scenarios it may get the information from gateway node. Fig. 5 shows an
example scenario with three clusters, each monitored by a cluster head.
Destination
Source
Gateway

Cluster head
Cluster
Fig. 5. Cluster head based and enhanced gateway oriented routing architecture.

Clusters in the network are connected through the intermediate gateways. The network shows source and
destination in two different clusters. Directional straight and dotted lines shows the route request path of
cluster head dominated approach and enhanced gateway based modified approach. The scenario shown in
fig. 5 suggests that the modified model forwards the route request with minimum hop distance.
The network was analyzed for existing architecture and modified approach and compared based on their
simulation results. NS2 network simulator was used to develop the environment and scenario and
implement the protocols for comparison.

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4.1.

Simulation and Results

An extensive simulation was conducted using NS2 with 802.11 MAC protocol23. Five different mobility
scenarios were generated with, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 as pause time. Network bandwidth of wireless
channel is 1 Mbps. Initial energy of all the devices were 100 joules, packet transmission power is 0.2
joules, receiving power 0.1 joules and idle state power consumption is 0.02 joules. All traffics were of CBR
flow and the packet size of 1000 Bytes. Interval between the packet transmissions was set as 0.25 sec. In
general network topology, 50 nodes were randomly deployed in area of 700 x 700 m. Then the network was
deployed for the five flows in the 50 nodes network.
In this approach, existing protocol was modified to get a reliable mechanism that can increase routing
performance at different mobility situations. Different routing metrics identifies different paths between
source and destination. The proposed model was compared with the existing cluster head based
communication network for their packet delivery ratio in the network. To experiment the metrics the flow
was executed for both the protocols with different scenarios. Results have shown that the modified
approach has dominated in performance at all different mobility scenarios. Modified model had average
range of packet delivery rate from 91.06% to 97.92% whereas the existing approach had the range 88.34%
to 95.92. At critical scenario it was noted that the existing protocol had delivered only 77.67% of packets
when the modified model proved with 85.09 %.
In military operations, data exchanged between the nodes is critical thereby the networking protocols
enclosed with data for its transaction needs to provide reliable service. Fig. 6 shows the performance of
modified model by taking average output of sample scenarios. Simulation result shows that the
performance of protocols gets affected by variation in networks mobility. Result also shows that the
protocols give higher performances at low mobility scenarios and packet delivery ratio has come down with
an increase in networks mobility.
Packet Delivery Ratio at Various Mobility

Existing

Modified

100
98
96

PDF

94
92
90
88

86
84
82
20

40

60
Pause Time

80

100

Fig. 6. Simulation result of average packet delivery rate at different pause time.

Movement of nodes and devices cannot be predefined for military operation sites. Thereby the criticality
of the network is that it needs to perform high in all sorts of mobility situations. Communication network
has to be more reliable for these situations with high packet delivery rates. Graph shows how the modified
work has outperformed existing approach at different mobility levels. As the military operations were
risked on human life, still there is a need to improve the performance with higher optimizations and
enhancements.
5.

Conclusion

Lack of infrastructure, intrinsic flexibility, ease of deployment and low cost in MANET makes it
essential effective part in military communication. Integration of MANET with other wireless networks and
fixed infrastructures will be an important part of the development towards future generation networks. In
this paper, three different military situations were analyzed which suggests the need of contributions to suit

J. Sandeep and J. Satheesh Kumar / Procedia Computer Science 47 (2015) 400 407

critical situations of military operations. Simulations of network scenarios with different approaches were
discussed under the case study and results have proved network with enhanced performance. First case
study generalizes the workload sharing in the network and reduces the energy consumption of master
nodes. Further this can be studies for individual nodes with different aspects of network. In the second case
study, Life of critical node was discussed with examples where an ant colony based enhancement to the
existing approach has influenced and increases the life span of critical nodes. The network further studied
for improving the reliability with enhanced architecture which proved to enhance the packet delivery ratio
up to 97.92 % for the given scenario. In military, communication networks performance is risked on
soldiers life thereby despite the large efforts of the MANET research community and the rapid progress of
network needs to be further enhanced for improved performances.
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