Simulation analysis of proactive, reactive and hybrid routing protocols in mobile ad hoc network using Qualnet simulator 5.0.2

Abstract

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) consist of a collection of wireless mobile nodes which dynamically exchange data among themselves without the reliance on a fixed base station or a wired backbone network. All nodes are mobile and can be connected dynamically in an arbitrary manner. There is no static infrastructure such as base station. All nodes of these networks behave as routers and take part in discovery and maintenance of routes to other nodes in the network. There are various protocols for handling the routing problem in the ad hoc wireless network environment. In this paper, focus is given on studying the performance evaluation of various routing protocols using Qualnet simulator 5.0.2. The performance of the proactive, reactive and hybrid protocols are analyzed with different node densities for stationary nodes. The metrics used for the performance evaluation include throughput, packet delivery ratio and average end to end delay. Key words: Proactive, reactive, hybrid, performance evaluation, Qualnet, end-to-end delay, throughput, packets delivery ratio.