Adama Science and Technology University
School of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Department of Computer science and Engineering
INTERNET SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY
Term paper on:
Performance Comparison of Routing Protocol in
Mobile Ad hoc networks
Prepared by: - Bekele Girma ID: PGE/24999/14
Submitted to: Ketema Adere (PhD)
February 2023
Table of Contents
I. Abstract....................................................................................................................................2
1. Background..................................................................................................................................2
1.1. Overview Mobile Ad hoc network......................................................................................3
1.2. Characteristic of mobile ad hoc network.......................................................................3
1.3. Application of MANETs..................................................................................................3
2. Statement of the problem............................................................................................................4
2.1. Routing in MANET.............................................................................................................4
2.2. Classification of Routing Protocol......................................................................................5
2.2.1. Pro-active routing protocols........................................................................................5
2.2.2. Reactive routing protocols:.........................................................................................5
2.2.3. Hybrid Routing protocols:..........................................................................................6
3. Hypothesis/Research Questions..................................................................................................6
4. Objectives.....................................................................................................................................7
5. Preliminary Literature review and related work......................................................................7
6. Methodology.................................................................................................................................9
6.1. Performance Evaluation and Design..................................................................................9
6.1.1. Performance Metrics...................................................................................................9
6.1.2. Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR).......................................................................................9
6.1.3. Routing Overhead........................................................................................................9
6.1.4. Average End-to-End Delay packets............................................................................9
6.1.5. Average Throughput.................................................................................................10
6.2. Simulation Setup................................................................................................................10
6.2.1. Introduction................................................................................................................10
6.2.2. Simulators Classification Criteria............................................................................10
I. Ns2 (Network Simulator 2):..............................................................................................10
II. OMNET++......................................................................................................................11
7. Discussion and Analysis............................................................................................................11
7.1. Comparison Routing protocols.........................................................................................11
8. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................13
9. References..................................................................................................................................14
I. Abstract
Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) are independent systems that can work without the
requirement for unified controls, pre-setup to the routes or advance communication
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structures. The changing nature of the network's architecture and nodes necessitates a routing
protocol to ensure efficient source-to-destination communication. Routing protocols are
responsible for providing reliable communication between the source and destination nodes.
The performance of these protocols in the ad hoc network family is influenced by several
factors such as mobility, traffic load, transmission range, and the number of mobile nodes,
which represents a great issue. Routing and maintenance are critical parts of effective time
management and considered research study for MANET communication. In this research we
discuss and looks at the performance of four routing protocols, which are DSDV, DSR,
AODV and ZRP in a MANET using different performance metrics. These metrics are Packet
Delivery Ratio (PDR), Routing Overhead, Average End-to-End Delay packets and Average
Throughput by using different simulation design and tools.
1. Background
The use of wireless networks has become more and more popular. Based on the type of
network infrastructure used for communication, wireless network are categorized into two
types. Infrastructure Networks and Infrastructure-less Networks. An infrastructure network
consists of wireless mobile nodes and one or more bridges, which connect the wireless
network to the wired network. Infrastructure less have no any infrastructure to communicate
with each other.
MANET is the infrastructure-less and self-organizing wireless networks particularly used for
mobile nodes, and each node in a network acts as a participant as well as router.
In the ad hoc topology, the user does not rely on fixed infrastructure where the nodes are
self-configured and self-managed.
The root of ad hoc networking can be traced back as far as in 1968, when work on the
ALOHA network was initiated. The objective of this network was to connect educational
facilities in Hawaii.
The idea of mobile ad hoc networks date back to early 1970s. The main Driving force behind
ad hoc networks was the need for survival, infrastructure less and hard to detect military
applications.
1.1. Overview Mobile Ad hoc network
The increasing use wireless portable devices such as phones and laptops is leading to the
possibility for spontaneous or ad hoc wireless communication known as Mobile Ad Hoc
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Networks (MANET). A mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring network that
does not require any preexistent (fixed) Infrastructure, which minimizes their deployment
time as well as cost. As each node in this network is free to move which makes the network
to change its topology continuously. In Mobile, ad hoc network nodes have the ability to
communicate to each other without any plan, design, and constructive model.
1.2. Characteristic of mobile ad hoc network
Dynamic Topologies: Network topology, which is typically a multi hop, may change
randomly and rapidly with time, it can form unidirectional or bi-directional links.
Limited Bandwidth: These networks have very little capacity and range of data
transmission.
No Centralized Control: The working is completely dependent on the behavior and
support of the participating devices
Autonomous Behavior: Each node can act as a host and router, which shows its
autonomous behavior.
Energy Constrained Operation: As some or all the nodes rely on batteries or other
exhaustible means for their energy. Less memory, power and lightweight features
characterize mobile nodes.
Limited Security: Wireless networks are more prone to security threats. A centralized
firewall is absent due to the distributed nature of the operation for security, routing, and host
configuration.
Less Human Intervention: They require minimum human intervention to configure the
network; therefore, they are dynamically autonomous in nature.
1.3. Application of MANETs
Because ad hoc networks are flexible networks that can be set up anywhere at any time,
without infrastructure, including reconfiguration or administration, people have come to
realize the commercial potential and advantages that mobile ad hoc networking can bring.
Military field: Ad-Hoc networking can permit army to exploit benefit of conventional
network expertise for preserving any info network among vehicles, armed forces, and
headquarters of information.
PAN and Bluetooth: A Personal area network localized and tiny range network whose
devices are generally belong to a specified individual. Limited-range MANET such as
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Bluetooth can make simpler the exchange among several portable devices like a laptop, and
a cell phone.
Sensor Networks: managing home appliances with MANETs in both the case like nearby
and distantly. Tracking of objects like creatures. Weather sensing related activities.
Educational sector: arrangement of communications facilities for computer-generated
conference rooms or classrooms or laboratories.
2. Statement of the problem
In MANETs, all network nodes are constantly moving in random directions with various
speeds so there is a very high possibility of data collision and this in turn affects the
network performance. Additionally, because of such continuous node mobility, data packets
often drop and links are broken so the route discovery process triggered frequently. As a
result, data congestion at the intermediate nodes frequently happens. This would affect
negatively the performance in terms of end-to-end delay, node energy, and link stability. It
requires a mechanism to select a reliable route that avoids links that possibly encounter
these traffic problems. There are many challenging factors for the routing protocols of
MANETs. In some situations, the mobility of the nodes may create a significant challenge
to the routing protocol because some of the nodes will be out of the transmission range,
which will require finding an alternative path to the destination. In a real network, the node
is affected by power constraints, as the node is operating with a limited battery, which will
affect the lifetime of the nodes. Routing protocols in ad hoc network are evaluated for each
protocol under various routing categories.
2.1. Routing in MANET
Routing is the process of choosing the best paths to send packet across the network. A good
routing protocol should minimize the computing load on the host as well as the traffic
overhead on the network. In MANETs, routing protocols are essential to finding the right
path between the source and the destination. The basic idea is that a new node may
announce its presence and should listen for announcements broadcast by its neighbors. Each
node learns about nodes nearby and how to reach them, and may announce that it who can
reach them.
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2.2. Classification of Routing Protocol
The routing protocols specify the route direction across nodes and distribute information
about route selection among any nodes in a network. Routing protocols are divided into
three types. Proactive routing protocols (PRP). Reactive routing protocols (RRP), and
hybrid routing protocols (HRP).
2.2.1. Pro-active routing protocols: These are also known as table-driven routing protocols. Each
mobile node maintains a separate routing table, which contains the information of the routes
to all the possible destination mobile nodes. Since the topology in the mobile ad-hoc
network is dynamic, these routing tables are updated periodically as and when the network
topology changes. It has a limitation that it doesn’t work well for the large networks as the
entries in the routing table becomes too large since they need to maintain the route
information to all possible nodes.
Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV): DSDV is a proactive routing protocol.
DSDV protocol is generated only when necessary, reducing the amount of broadcasts as
routes. A route finding is started when a node wishes to connect with node, without prior
knowledge of the direction. The route requests are sent to the neighbors of the requesting
node, who then send the query to their vicinity. This step is continued until there is a target
node or node to the target node.
2.2.2. Reactive routing protocols: These are also known as on-demand routing protocol. In this
type of routing, the route discovered only when it is required/needed. The process of route
discovery occurs by flooding the route request packets throughout the mobile network. It
consists of two major phases namely, route discovery and route maintenance.
Dynamic Source Routing Protocol (DSR): - The DSR routing protocol has two types of
mechanisms work together for the discovery and maintenance of source routes in the
network, in addition, DSR work on demand. DSR has a cache memory that is used to store
some important information like the information related to network routes. DSR has very an
efficient route discovery mechanism that is used to detect the route between source nodes to
the destination node in ad hoc network. The packet which will be transmitted through the
route has the address of each node even get to its destination.
Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol (AODV): - Is one of the most
important types of ad hoc routing protocol. If there is a node, which needs to send data
between source and destination node, the node must find the way to his destination, the
node will generate Route Request (RREQ) for this operation. This message sent to all
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adjacent nodes in the hope of reaching the destination. The destination node will generate
the Route Reply (RREP) to inform the source node that the path is available and was
discovered to send data.
2.2.3. Hybrid Routing protocols: It basically combines the advantages of both, reactive and pro-
active routing protocols. These protocols are adaptive in nature and adapts according to
the zone and position of the source and destination mobile nodes.
Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP): -The whole network is divided into different zones and
then the position of source and destination mobile node is observed. If the source and
destination mobile nodes are present in the same zone, then proactive routing is used for
the transmission of the data packets between them. If the source and destination mobile
nodes are present in different zones, then reactive routing is used for the transmission of
the data packets between them.
3. Hypothesis/Research Questions
Routing protocols are classified either as reactive or proactive. Hybrid routing protocols are
a combination of both reactive and proactive. These protocols have varying qualities for
different routing aspects. It is due to this reason that choice of a correct routing protocol is
critical. In this research, we address ‘Which routing protocol provides a better performance
in Mobile Ad hoc Networks?’ This question addresses the overall performance of each
routing protocol in terms of end to end packet delivery, throughput and routing overhead.
We investigate this question with four routing protocols in MANETs. These routings are
Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Dynamic Source Routing Protocol
(DSR), Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol (AODV) and Zone Routing
Protocol (ZRP). In trying to answer these questions, we modelled MANET scenarios with
varying traffic loads and mobility scenarios and evaluated the performance of DSR, AODV
and ZRP with respect to throughput, packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and routing
overhead.
4. Objectives
The objective of this research term paper is
To investigate what is MANET and its application areas
Types of Routing protocol in MANET
Different types of simulation tools
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To look at performance and throughput of Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector
(DSDV), Dynamic Source Routing Protocol (DSR), Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance
Vector Routing Protocol (AODV) and Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) by using
different performance metrics.
5. Preliminary Literature review and related work
MANET routing protocols have been tested and evaluated in so many literatures especially
in relation to the comparison of their performance from different perspective Researches.
Larsson and Hedman have made a simulation for AODV and DSR. Results have shown
that DSR is better than AODV in general. However, when the network size increases,
AODV becomes better because DSR is a source routing protocol. They have concluded that
a combination between AODV and DSR could be a solution with better performance than
the original AODV and DSR.
Mai et al. using DSDV, OLSR, and AODV as routing protocols in MANETs have
simulated and evaluated in three scenarios, which are 10, 30, and 50 respectively by using
NS3 as a simulation tool. Packet size was a varied parameter in each scenario. The
performance indices that have been used are Throughput, Good put, Packet Delivery Ratio,
average E2E delay, and Energy Consumption (EC). The results have shown AODV as
reactive routing protocol is better than other protocols, while OLSR little better other
routing protocols in term of PDR.
Sesay, Yang, Qi and He [30] have introduced a comparison of the four typical ad hoc
routing protocols namely DSDV, TORA, DSR and AODV. The comparison in [30] has
been achieved in more dynamic environment than [22] and [30]. This means that it takes the
mobility parameter into consideration. However, the comparison does not concern the
comparison of single path and multipath which make a difference in the protocol
performance especially in overall throughput.
Misra and Mandal [19] have conducted a comparative study between DSR and AODV
which are both on-demand protocols. Although, it is more recent than the previous study,
unfortunately, DSDV and TORA are not involved in this comparative study.
Periyasamy et al. proposed a protocol called link reliable multipath routing (LRMR) [16]. It
finds multiple link reliable paths between any source and destination pair using two metrics
such as Path Length and Path-Link Quality Estimator (P-LQE). It also reduces the
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probability of routing interrupts in a dynamic Ad hoc network. However, the LRMR does
not consider the resources of the node, such as residual energy and available bandwidth, so
QoS can only be supported to a certain extent.
Some other summary of papers on literature review of routing protocols
Evaluation Matrix Main/objective / Remarks about the paper
Packet delivery ratio, Authors have tested both AODV and DSR protocols
packet loss metrics and are Comparable with throughput performance. In
throughput. addition, the DSR protocol which has shown the best
performance in terms of PDR, end-to-end delay and
packet loss. Overall, the Reactive routing protocol
has better performance rather than Proactive
protocols.
Packet delivery ratio, This paper has tested the various type of MANET
packet loss metrics and routing protocol (DSR, AODV, TORA, DSDV, WRP
throughput and ZRP), AODV and DSR were the same as
performance, while the TORA multipath protocol
was poor in performance.
Throughput, end to-end The routing protocols DSR, AODV, DSDV and
delay, Routing overhead OLSR were examined and compared to NS2, under
and Energy consumption idioms of throughput, end-to-end delay, Routing
overhead and Energy consumption. The results
indicate that the DSR protocol was best rather than
the rest other protocols in consumes power, the
AODV was better with a term of throughput.
Packet Drop Rate, The researcher wraps up when using both AODV and
Throughput. DSR, the result of PDR and throughput give us the
same result with a fixed network.
6. Methodology
6.1. Performance Evaluation and Design
In this topic, I am going to present different design and metrics for different routing
protocols. The purpose of this study is to compare and evaluate the performance of routing
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protocols for Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Dynamic Source Routing
Protocol (DSR), Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol (AODV) and Zone
Routing Protocol (ZRP) by using different metrics. The reasons behind selecting these
protocols is that these are the most widely used routing protocols from each of the
categories and it was proven that these are the best suited for Ad Hoc Networks.
6.1.1. Performance Metrics
We will evaluate the result for three protocols one from each type and evaluate by using the
following performance metrics.
6.1.2. Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR)
This metric determines the efficiency of the protocol, which can be done through the
measure of the packet that sent from the source to the destination, and the PDR is a part of
that data packets. Performance metric evaluates the accuracy and completeness for any
routing protocol besides the reliability
6.1.3. Routing Overhead
It is the number of routing packets, which would be sent for route discovery and
maintenance.
6.1.4. Average End-to-End Delay packets
This performance metric measures the delay to reach the packets to the destination. when
we send a packets there are many small delay stations through the way from the source to
the destination, the total dally as a result of the many accumulations of delay, that delay
because the temporary storage when discovering the routes, delay of sending the MAC,
broadcast, and the time of transmit.
6.1.5. Average Throughput
This performance metric is to measure the average of the value of the data receiving the
destination successfully to the total of simulation time. That throughput always measured by
the in kilobits per second (kbps). It also depends on many factors such as energy, inconstant
network topology, bandwidth and unreliable communication.
6.2. Simulation Setup
6.2.1. Introduction
A network simulator is a software program that imitates the working of a computer
network. Simulators are used to design and evaluate the network algorithms and routing
protocols under varying network conditions. For routing in Mobile Ad hoc Networks,
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routing protocol must be deployed. Before implementing the routing protocol its behavior
must be analyzed by simulation. So network simulators are used for simulating these
routing protocols or other algorithms in wired and wireless networks. Typically, users can
then customize the simulator to fulfill their specific analysis needs. Simulators generally
come with support for the most popular networks protocols in use nowadays
6.2.2. Simulators Classification Criteria
Complexity: - Simply, a network simulator is supposed to enable users to represent a
network topology, assigning the nodes and the traffic connections between those nodes,
determine the used protocols in a network, defining the scenarios. More complicated
systems may allow the user to determine everything about the protocols used to process
network traffic in a network, and allow users to do more advanced forms of customization
GUI (Graphical User Interface): GUI simulator tools it provide a simple and intuitive set
of icons to represent the components of a network which allow users to easily visualize the
workings of their simulated environment.
Open Source: Some of simulators are commercial which means that they would not
provide the source code of its software or the full packages to the all users free. All the
users have to pay to be authorized to use that software.
I. Ns2 (Network Simulator 2): Ns is a discrete event simulator designed specifically for
network research. Ns provides extensive support for simulation of TCP, routing, and
multicast protocols over wired and wireless (local and satellite) networks. NS-2 allows
functional support for several protocols such as 802.11, 802.15.4, 802.16, impulse-radio
ultra wide band (IR-UWB) etc. It is an object-oriented simulator that relies on two
languages: C++ and a scripting language object oriented tool command language (OTcl).
Both these languages have different role in modelling simulation. NS-2 is an open source
simulator that can operate on operating systems (OSs) such as MAC OS X, Solaris,
windows and Linux.
II. OMNET++
OMNET++ is a C++ simulation library and framework that is primarily used to create
network simulators. It is extensible, modular, and component-based. The term "network"
refers to both wired and wireless communication networks, as well as on-chip networks,
queueing networks, and other types of networks. Model frameworks, which are developed
as separate projects, provide domain-specific functionality such as support for sensor
networks, wireless ad-hoc networks, Internet protocols, performance modeling, photonic
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networks, and so on. OMNET++ includes an Eclipse-based integrated development
environment, a graphical runtime environment, and a number of other features.
7. Discussion and Analysis
7.1. Comparison Routing protocols
A variety of studies were carried out using the NS2 to collect data on various situations
and parameters to compare routing protocols in MANETs. The experimental data will be
shown and interpreted analytically during this term paper. The parameters that are studied
during this network were as following Packet Delivery Ratio, Routing Overhead, End to
End Delay packets and Average Throughput.
Routing Overhead
It is the number of routing packets, which would be sent for route discovery and
maintenance. High routing overhead can affect bandwidth and energy consumption.
number of control packet sent.
What can influence overhead as found in literature
Number of neighbors
Number of hops
Route discovery and positioning
Frequency of updates /topology changes
Average Throughput
This performance metric is to measure the average of the value of the data receiving the
destination successfully to the total of simulation time and measured by the in kilobits per
second (kbps).
And here are the results of comparison between DSR, DSDV, AODV and ZRP from
literature review
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Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR): The ratio of the number of packets received by the target
node to the number of packets actually sent by the source node is called PDR
End to End Delay: End to end delay is another important measure for routing protocol
and performance evaluation. End to end delay is total delay or time taken by a packet to
successfully reach the sink node.
Here is some other comparison between these routing protocols.
Features DSR DSDV AODV ZRP
Routing Low High Low Medium
overhead
Multiple routes Yes No No No
Update Source Neighbors Source Neighbors
Destination
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Different survey and research article and scholars indicate that AODV performs better
than other protocols in terms of normalized routing load, packet delivery ratio, and
throughput.
For this term paper I wouldn’t implement full simulation due to time shortage and final
exam preparation.so I use different papers and scholars and compare them prepare and
come up with some results and conclusions.
8. Conclusion
Ad hoc networks are the key in the evolution of wireless network. Various MANET
protocols have been listed and discussed in these term paper. we have evaluated four
different ad hoc routing protocols with respect to their routing overhead, packet delivery
ratio, throughput and packet end-to-end delay. Throughput, packet end-to-end delay and
packet delivery ratio addresses the reliability of the protocols. Routing overhead addresses
the efficient use of network resources by the protocols. According to different researches
AODV is much more efficient with the term of throughput as shown with successfully
transmitted packets, where the Packet Drop Rate was higher with ZRP compared with the
rest of the protocols. The NS2 simulation results from different papers show that AODV
efficiency is comparatively better than the routing protocols DSR and DSDV and ZRP. It is
suitable for large networks at high throughput rates. The drop rate is an indicator of the
efficiency of the current network. Results show that ZRP has very fluctuating PDR values,
which means its design is highly volatile and not ideal for high-reliability facilities or
applications. More research and simulation tools are required to evaluate the performance of
each routing protocol in MANETs.
9. References
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