A Modified Leader Election Algorithm for MANET

Distributed systems are the backbone of modern day computing services. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes that can communicate via message passing over wireless links. Communication takes place directly between nodes which are in transmission range of each other else communication is done through message relay. A MANET is different from existing distributed network because of their concurrent and frequently changing wireless link formation and removal, network partitioning and disconnections, limited bandwidth and energy and highly variable message delay. An election algorithm elects a leader to coordinate and organize a task in distributed systems that includes MANET also. In the case of a leader node departure or failure, nodes detecting the non-availability of the leader initiate a leader election process to select a new leader. This paper presents a comparative analysis of various leader election algorithms and a new leader election algorithm in analytical way which considers factors such as node’s position, time complexity, message complexity, battery life and security.