A Comparision Study of Common Routing Protocols Used In Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze and compare performance of both reactive and proactive Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) routing protocols using different environments. Wireless networks are divided into two types: infrastructure and ad hoc network. In wireless ad hoc networks each node can be a sender, router and receiver, so these types of network are less structure compared to infrastructure network. Therefore wireless ad hoc networks need special routing protocols to overcome the limitations of wireless ad hoc networks. Wireless ad hoc networks routing protocols can be categorized into two types: reactive (on demand) routing protocols and proactive routing protocols. In proactive routing protocols the nodes periodically send control messages across the network to build routing table. Different routing protocols have been simulated using GloMoSim (Global Mobile Information system simulation) library and PARSEC compiler. Five multi-hop wireless ad hoc network routing protocols have been simulated to cover a range of design choices: Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP), Fisheye State Routing (FSR), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) and Location Aided Routing (LAR). The protocols are evaluated in different environments to investigate performance metrics. Performance metric includes the following aspects: packets deliver ratio, end-to-end delay and end-to-end throughput.