Multi-path QoS Routing Protocol for Load Balancing in MANET

In Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET), single path QoS routing is disadvantageous since it may cause fading, interference, collision and link failures. For QoS routing, load balancing is essential since it allows a router to take advantage of multiple best paths to a given destination. It can minimize the maximum utilization while supporting the same traffic demands. It reacts quickly to changes in traffic demands, link failures, and traffic spikes. It also avoids congestion within the network. So, considering the advantages of load balancing, a multi-path routing for load balancing (MQRLB) is proposed in this paper. Initially, Route Discovery is initiated when the source node attempts to discover disjoint routes to the destination. After multiple disjoint routes are established, the balancing function and the forwarding function for each path is calculated, based on which the load unbalance condition is checked. In case of load unbalance, load distribution is done by adding redundant codes along with the data and transmitting through multiple paths. Thus QoS routing can be processed through multiple successful paths using load balancing.