Implementation of ETX metric within the AODV protocol in the NS-3 simulator

Abstract

Modern life cannot be imagined without wireless ad hoc networks (WANETs). People use, in a daily manner, smart phones, laptops or tablet computers. With an increasing number of users of WANETs, the need for a fast throughput and small delay is increasing as well. One efficient way to provide users with such demands is to find an optimal route between source and destination node. Therefore, many routing protocols and metrics for WANETs are proposed in last decades. It is very important to test performances of the proposed protocols in various network scenarios. The computer simulation is a very efficient way to test routing protocols and to evaluate their significance and practical value. One of the most recent but very frequently used discrete-event network simulators is Network Simulator 3 (NS-3). In order to contribute to the NS-3 simulator development, an implementation of one of the most commonly used metric in WANET protocols the expected transmission count (ETX) is proposed in this paper. ETX metric is implemented within an ad-hoc on demand distance vector (AODV) protocol. The source code of this implementation is publicly available.