Ranking AODV Routing Characteristics in MANETs: Fuzzy Delphi Method Application

Optimization of Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) routing has the potential to improve performance. Enhancing the Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol, which is predominantly used in MANET routing, would lead to performance improvements. This study sought to provide a structured approach to identifying which AODV protocol characteristics should be prioritized for modification to improve performance in MANETs. This would provide guidance for future research on AODV prioritization. Thirteen AODV characteristics were identified through a systematic review. The Fuzzy Delphi Method was employed to analyze and prioritize the study characteristics. Route discovery characteristics were prioritized and ranked as number one, with a threshold value of 0.097, 100% agreement among experts, and a fuzzy score of 0.72. The experts unanimously agreed that modifying the route discovery characteristic has the greatest potential to improve performance in MANET. This was because a large amount of control traffic in the network is generated during the route discovery process. The other characteristics were route selection, route maintenance, route table management, routing updates, number of routes discovered, hop count, time to live, and use of hello messages. However, some characteristics were perceived to be structurally critical for AODV operation but less responsive to performance-optimization modifications, namely hop-by-hop communication, identification of route request messages, sequence numbers, and neighbor lists. Future studies should complement the expert-based prioritization of AODV characteristics with experimental and simulation evaluations to quantify performance gains.