Abstract: A multi-constrained on-demand protocol, energy optimization and load balancing QoS on-demand
routing protocol (ELQRP), is proposed based on AODV for ad hoc networks. The protocol combines energy
consumption and link load as the QoS parameters to establish a route. Distance information is used to control
broadcasting direction of RREQ packets. Both energy and queue threshold are applied to limit the forwarding
of RREQ packets, reducing unnecessary routing overhead. In the routing maintenance phase, the proposed protocol
uses node energy information to restrict local repairing, preventing power exhausting nodes from building
the routing. All these measures are helpful to optimize the mechanisms of routing selection, forwarding, and
routing maintenance. Results of simulation with NS2 show that ELQRP can effectively improve the network
performance, especially delivery rate, normalized routing overhead and end-to-end delay.