Performance Comparison of Mobile Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols

Abstract

The Efficient routing protocols can provide significant benefits to mobile ad hoc networks, in terms of both performance and reliability. Many routing protocols for such networks have been proposed so far. Amongst the most popular ones are Ad hoc On- demand Distance Vector (AODV), Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing protocol (DSDV), Dynamic Source Routing Protocol (DSR), and Optimum Link State Routing (OLSR). Despite the popularity of those protocols, research efforts have not focused much in evaluating their performance when applied to variable bit rate (VBR). In this paper we present our observations regarding the performance comparison of the above protocols for VBR in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). We perform extensive simulations, using NS-2 simulator. Our studies have shown that reactive protocols perform better than proactive protocols. Further DSR has performed well for the performance parameters namely delivery ratio and routing overload while AODV performed better in terms of average delay.