Analysing and Comparing the Performance of the MANET Routing Protocols: AODV, DSDV and ZRP

Abstract

MANETs, or Mobile Ad hoc Networks, are infrastructure wireless ad hoc networks with self-configuration, dynamicity, and mobility as the main characteristics. MANETs are different from traditional wireless networks and so is the problem of routing for MANETs. For this, a lot of research has been done on this topic resulting in a number of MANET routing protocols. Three of the most common protocols are AODV, DSDV, and ZRP. In this project, we evaluated these three routing protocols and compared them using simulation with NS2. The analysis is based on a number of metrics including throughput, packet delivery ratio, and jitter. This paper found that the AODV protocol has shown a better performance than the other protocols, DSDV and ZRP in all simulation scenarios. It is important to note that while the AODV protocol outperformed all protocols in all scenarios, the DSDV and ZRP performed well in small-size networks; therefore, they can be recommended to use in such networks.