Energy‐Aware and Traffic‐Optimized Routing for MANETS in Sustainable Smart Cities

ABSTRACT

In Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), ensuring energy efficiency and optimizing traffic flow present significant challenges, especially in smart city environments characterized by limited resources and dynamic node mobility. Leveraging real‐time traffic analysis and adaptive energy management, the proposed method ensures balanced energy consumption while maintaining optimal routing performance. Unlike traditional fixed‐weight routing models, our protocol employs an adaptive weighting mechanism where the routing parameters alpha, beta, and gamma dynamically adjust based on real‐time network conditions including node energy levels, traffic congestion patterns, and mobility dynamics. This adaptive approach automatically prioritizes energy conservation when battery levels are critically low, emphasizes traffic load balancing during congestion, and optimizes path length when routing efficiency becomes paramount. This fundamental distinction from fixed‐weight models enables superior performance across varying network conditions without manual parameter tuning. Extensive simulations conducted using NS‐3 simulator under varying node densities, mobility patterns, and traffic loads demonstrate that the proposed protocol significantly reduces energy consumption, improves packet delivery ratio, increases throughput, and extends network lifetime compared to conventional approaches. The results highlight its practical applicability in smart city scenarios, contributing to sustainable urban development by facilitating efficient and reliable communication in MANETs. This work advances energy‐aware networking and supports scalable, intelligent communication for next‐generation urban systems.