In ad hoc networks, ZRP is the most typical protocol in hybrid routing protocols. Aiming at the problem that the scheme for maintaining an inter-zone route in ZRP makes ZRP take more lost packets and more route re-discovering times; the former makes ZRP take lower delivery ratio of data packets, which makes ZRP take less reliability; the latter makes ZRP take more transmission delay and more routing overheads, a reliable zone routing protocol (RZRP) was proposed. RZRP was designed from basic idea and key technologies, and the protocol performance was analyzed in a simulation. The simulation results show that RZRP improves delivery ratio of data packets, which shows that RZRP improves the protocol reliability, and RZRP also reduces the transmission delay and routing overheads.
