Open Access

ARTICLE

Optimizing Connections: Applied Shortest Path Algorithms for MANETs

by Ibrahim Alameri^1,*, Jitka Komarkova², Tawfik Al-Hadhrami³, Abdulsamad Ebrahim Yahya⁴, Atef Gharbi⁵

1 Faculty of Medical Sciences, Jabir Ibn Hayyan Medical University, Alkufa, Najaf, 54001, Iraq
2 Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubice, Studentska, Pardubice, 53210, Czech Republic
3 Computer Science Department, School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, NG118NS, UK
4 Department of Information Technology, College of Computing and Information Technology, Northern Border University, Arar, 91431, Saudi Arabia
5 Department of Information System, College of Computing and Information Technology, Northern Border University, Arar, 91431, Saudi Arabia

* Corresponding Author: Ibrahim Alameri. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Computer Modeling for Future Communications and Networks)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2024, 141(1), 787-807. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2024.052107

Received 23 March 2024; Accepted 13 June 2024; Issue published 20 August 2024

Abstract

This study is trying to address the critical need for efficient routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) from dynamic topologies that pose great challenges because of the mobility of nodes. The main objective was to delve into and refine the application of the Dijkstra's algorithm in this context, a method conventionally esteemed for its efficiency in static networks. Thus, this paper has carried out a comparative theoretical analysis with the Bellman-Ford algorithm, considering adaptation to the dynamic network conditions that are typical for MANETs. This paper has shown through detailed algorithmic analysis that Dijkstra’s algorithm, when adapted for dynamic updates, yields a very workable solution to the problem of real-time routing in MANETs. The results indicate that with these changes, Dijkstra’s algorithm performs much better computationally and 30% better in routing optimization than Bellman-Ford when working with configurations of sparse networks. The theoretical framework adapted, with the adaptation of the Dijkstra's algorithm for dynamically changing network topologies, is novel in this work and quite different from any traditional application. The adaptation should offer more efficient routing and less computational overhead, most apt in the limited resource environment of MANETs. Thus, from these findings, one may derive a conclusion that the proposed version of Dijkstra’s algorithm is the best and most feasible choice of the routing protocol for MANETs given all pertinent key performance and resource consumption indicators and further that the proposed method offers a marked improvement over traditional methods. This paper, therefore, operationalizes the theoretical model into practical scenarios and also further research with empirical simulations to understand more about its operational effectiveness.

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Keywords

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