Performance Evaluation of Mobile Ad Hoc Routing Mechanisms

Abstract

Routing protocols play a pivotal role in energy-efficient, reliable and robust communication in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). In order to ensure efficient communication, the optimal operation setting of a routing protocol is essential to be ascertained. In this paper, we perform a comparative analysis of three most popular MANET routing protocols, namely, ad hoc on demand distance vector (AODV), dynamic source routing, and destination sequenced distance vector protocols. We evaluate the performance of these protocols for different network sizes, each with low and high traffic scenario. The generic evaluation criteria which specify the performance of routing protocols and used in our simulations include packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, average remaining energy of nodes, and throughput. Our in-depth analysis and the comparison results presented in this paper show that AODV protocol outperforms the other two protocols for the selected parameters and various network scenarios.