HGRP: hybrid grid routing protocol for heterogeneous hierarchical wireless networks

The heterogeneous mobile terminals coexist in the next generation wireless networks. The most common routing schemes for mobile ad hoc networks are designed for homogeneous wireless networks. The heterogeneous wireless network routing protocols are needed urgently in many important applications. This paper improves the routing scheme utilizing different capability of terminals and the Hybrid Grid Routing Protocol (HGRP) is proposed. The network is organized in the grid form, that is, the network deployment area is divided into square cells according to the location. Each cell contains one backbone node and several ordinary nodes. This proposed protocol consists of four parts: grid construction, local routing, global routing, and routing correction. Analysis and simulation results indicate that the proposed protocol has the advantages of lower routing cost, lower energy consumption, smaller delay and higher throughput, compared to AODV and ZRP.