STARP: A Novel Routing Protocol for Multi-hop Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks

The technology of Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) can utilize unused licensed bands not being used by licensed users to improve the capacity and throughput of multi-hop wireless networks working on the ISM bands. However, DSA also brings us a new challenge: how to network the radios in multi-hop DSA networks to improve network performance, such as throughput and end-to-end delay? To address this issue, we propose a STability-Aware Routing Protocol (STARP) for multi-hop DSA networks. STARP can find the most stable path among multi paths to the destination for upper layer protocol. STARP evaluates path stability by utilizing a novel routing metric, which takes into account spectrum switching frequency, spectrum usage, and path length together. Simulation results of NS-2 show STARP is efficient and robust. In addition, STARP can achieve good improvement of TCP performance and shorten end-to-end packet delay significantly.