MOBILE ROUTING PROTOCOLS

1.1 Overview
Wireless networks is an emerging new technology that will allow users to access information and
services electronically, regardless of their geographic position. Wireless networks can be classified
in two types:- infrastructured network and infrastructureless (ad hoc) networks. Infrastructured
network consists of a network with fixed and wired gateways. A mobile host communicates with
a bridge in the network (called base station) within its communication radius. The mobile unit can
move geographically while it is communicating. When it goes out of range of one base station, it
connects with new base station and starts communicating through it. This is called handoff. In this
approach the base stations are fixed.

In contrast to infrastructure based networks, in ad hoc networks all nodes are mobile and can be
connected dynamically in an arbitrary manner. All nodes of these networks behave as routers and
take part in discovery and maintenance of routes to other nodes in the network. Ad hoc networks
are very useful in emergency search-and-rescue operations, meetings or conventions in which
persons wish to quickly share information, and data acquisition operations in inhospitable terrain.
In mobile ad-hoc networks where there is no infrastructure support as is the case with wireless
networks, and since a destination node might be out of range of a source node transmitting packets;
a routing procedure is always needed to find a path so as to forward the packets appropriately
between the source and the destination. Within a cell, a base station can reach all mobile nodes
without routing via broadcast in common wireless networks. In the case of ad-hoc networks, each
node must be able to forward data for other nodes. This creates additional problems along with the
problems of dynamic topology which is unpredictable connectivity changes.

1.2 Problems in Routing with Adhoc Mobile Networks

Asymmetric links: Most of the wired networks rely on the symmetric links which are always
fixed. But this is not a case with ad-hoc networks as the nodes are mobile and constantly changing
their position within network. For example consider a MANET( Mobile Ad-hoc Network ) where
node B sends a signal to node A but this does not tell anything about the quality of the connection
in the reverse direction [25].
Routing Overhead: In wireless adhoc networks, nodes often change their location within network.
So, some stale routes are generated in the routing table which leads to unnecessary routing
overhead.
Interference: This is the major problem with mobile ad-hoc networks as links come and go
depending on the transmission characteristics, one transmission might interfere with another one
and node might overhear transmissions of other nodes and can corrupt the total transmission.
Dynamic Topology: This is also the major problem with ad-hoc routing since the topology is not
constant. The mobile node might move or medium characteristics might change. In ad-hoc
networks, routing tables must somehow reflect these changes in topology and routing algorithms

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
have to be adapted. For example in a fixed network routing table updating takes place for every
30sec [25]. This updating frequency might be very low for ad-hoc networks.

1.3 Classification of Routing Protocols

Routing protocols in MANET’s can be classified in many ways, but most of these are done
depending on routing strategy and network structure[8, 24]. According to the routing strategy the
routing protocols can be categorized as Table-driven (Proactive) and source initiated (Reactive).

Fig. 1

1.3.1 Table Driven (Proactive) Routing Protocols

In Table-driven routing protocols each node maintains one or more tables containing routing
information to every other node in the network. All nodes update these tables so as to maintain a
consistent and up-to-date view of the network. When the network topology changes the nodes
propagate update messages throughout the network in order to maintain a consistent and up-to-
date routing information about the whole network. These routing protocols differ in the method by
which the topology change information is distributed across the network and the number of
necessary routing-related tables. These protocols are also called as proactive protocols since they
maintain the routing information even before it is needed. The proactive protocols are not suitable
for larger networks, as they need to maintain node entries for each and every node in the routing
table of every node. This causes more overhead in the routing table leading to consumption of
more bandwidth. The following sections discuss some of the existing table-driven ad hoc routing
protocols.
1.3.1.1 The Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector (DSDV) Routing Algorithm
DSDV is based on the idea of the classical Bellman-Ford Routing Algorithm with certain
improvements. Every mobile station maintains a routing table that lists all available destinations,
the number of hops to reach the destination and the sequence number assigned by the destination
node. The sequence number is used to distinguish stale routes from new ones and thus avoid the
formation of loops. The stations periodically transmit their routing tables to their immediate
neighbors. A station also transmits its routing table if a significant change has occurred in its table
from the last update sent. So, the update is both time-driven and event-driven. The routing table
updates can be sent in two ways: a "full dump" or an incremental update. A full dump sends the

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
full routing table to the neighbors and could span many packets whereas in an incremental update
only those entries from the routing table are sent that has a metric change since the last update and
it must fit in a packet. If there is space in the incremental update packet then those entries may be
included whose sequence number has changed. When the network is relatively stable, incremental
updates are sent to avoid extra traffic and full dump are relatively infrequent.
In a fast-changing network, incremental packets can grow big so full dumps will be more frequent.
Each route update packet, in addition to the routing table information, also contains a unique
sequence number assigned by the transmitter. The route labeled with the highest (i.e. most recent)
sequence number is used. If two routes have the same sequence number then the route with the
best metric (i.e. shortest route) is used. Based on the past history, the stations estimate the settling
time of routes. The stations delay the transmission of a routing update by settling time so as to
eliminate those updates that would occur if a better route were found very soon.
Example for DSDV Operation
Consider the below Fig. 2 which has 8 hosts in the network. We will have a look at the changes to
the MH4 routing table with reference to the movements of MH1.

Fig. 2: Movement of Mobile host in Adhoc Networks

Initially, all the nodes advertise their routing information to all the nodes in the network and hence
the routing table at MH4 initially looks like Table-1 and the forwarding table at the MH4 would
look like Table-2.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
 Table-1:Routing Table of MH4

Table-2: Forwarding Table at MH4

But, when the host MH1 moves its location as shown in the fig. 2 nearer to MH7 and MH8 then,
the link between MH2 and MH1 will be broken resulting in the assignment of infinity metric at
MH2 for MH1 and the sequence number will be changed to odd number in the routing table at
MH2. MH2 will update this information to its neighbor hosts. Since, there is a new neighbor host
for MH7 and MH8; they update their information in the routing tables and they broadcast. Now,
MH4 will receive its updated information from MH6 where MH6 will receive two information
packets from different neighbors to reach MH1 with same sequence number, but different metric.
The selection of the route will depend on less hop count when the sequence number is the same.
Now the routing table will look like Table-3 and the forwarding table will look like Table-4.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
 Table-3: Routing Table after MH1 Movement

Table-4: Forwarding Table at MH4 after MH1 Movement

Advantage of DSDV
1. DSDV protocol guarantees loop free paths.
2. Count to infinity problem is reduced in DSDV.
3. We can avoid extra traffic with incremental updates instead of full dump updates.
4. Path Selection: DSDV maintains only the best path instead of maintaining multiple paths
to every destination. With this, the amount of space in routing table is reduced.
Disadvantage of DSDV
1. Wastage of bandwidth due to unnecessary advertising of routing information even if there
is no change in the network topology.
2. DSDV doesn’t support Multi path Routing.
3. It is difficult to determine a time delay for the advertisement of routes.
4. It is difficult to maintain the routing table’s advertisement for larger network. Each and
every host in the network should maintain a routing table for advertising. But for larger
network this would lead to overhead, which consumes more bandwidth.
MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
1.3.1.2 Global State Routing
Global State Routing (GSR) is similar to DSDV. It takes the idea of link state routing but improves
it by avoiding flooding of routing messages.

In the LS routing method, each node floods the link state information into the whole network
(global flooding) once it realizes that links change between itself and its neighbours. The link state
information includes the delay to each of its neighbours. A node will know the whole topology
when it obtains all link information. Each node maintains a Neighbor list, a Topology table, a Next
Hop table and a Distance table. LS routing works well in networks with static topologies. When
links change quickly, however, frequent global flooding will inevitably lead to huge control
overhead. Unlike the traditional LS method, GSR does not flood the link state packets. Instead,
every node maintains the link state table based on up-to-date LS information received from
neighbouring nodes, and periodically exchanges its LS information with its neighbours only (no
global flooding). Before sending an LS packet, a node assigns the LS packet a unique sequence
number to identify the newest LS information. LS information is disseminated as the LS packets
with larger sequence numbers replace the ones with smaller sequence numbers.
The convergence time required to detect a link change in GSR is shorter than in the Distributed
Bellman-Ford (DBF) protocol. The convergence time in GSR is O(D*I) where D is the diameter
of the network and I is the link state update interval. The convergence time is normally smaller
than O(N*I) in DBF, where N is the number of nodes in the networks and I is the update interval.
Since the global topology is maintained in every node, preventing routing loops is simple and easy.
Limitations
The drawbacks of GSR are the large size of the update messages, which consume a considerable
amount of bandwidth, and the latency of the LS information propagation, which depends on the
LS information update interval time. ``Fisheye'' technology can be used to reduce the size of update
messages. In this case, every node maintains highly accurate network information about the
immediate neighboring nodes, with progressively fewer details about farther nodes.

1.3.2 On Demand (Reactive) Routing Protocols

These protocols are also called reactive protocols since they don’t maintain routing information or
routing activity at the network nodes if there is no communication. If a node wants to send a packet
to another node then this protocol searches for the route in an on-demand manner and establishes
the connection in order to transmit and receive the packet. The route discovery usually occurs by
flooding the route request packets throughout the network.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
1.3.2.1 Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) Protocol
The Dynamic Source Routing Protocol is a source-routed on-demand routing protocol. A node
maintains route caches containing the source routes that it is aware of. The node updates entries in
the route cache as and when it learns about new routes.

The two major phases of the protocol are: route discovery and route maintenance. When the source
node wants to send a packet to a destination, it looks up its route cache to determine if it already
contains a route to the destination. If it finds that an unexpired route to the destination exists, then
it uses this route to send the packet. But if the node does not have such a route, then it initiates the
route discovery process by broadcasting a route request packet. The route request packet contains
the address of the source and the destination, and a unique identification number. Each
intermediate node checks whether it knows of a route to the destination. If it does not, it appends
its address to the route record of the packet and forwards the packet to its neighbors. To limit the
number of route requests propagated, a node processes the route request packet only if it has not
already seen the packet and it's address is not present in the route record of the packet.

A route reply is generated when either the destination or an intermediate node with current
information about the destination receives the route request packet. A route request packet
reaching such a node already contains, in its route record, the sequence of hops taken from the
source to this node.

Fig. 3: Building Record Route during Route Discovery

Fig. 4: Propagation of Route Reply with the Route Record

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
As the route request packet propagates through the network, the route record is formed as shown
in figure 5a. If the route reply is generated by the destination then it places the route record from
route request packet into the route reply packet. On the other hand, if the node generating the route
reply is an intermediate node then it appends its cached route to destination to the route record of
route request packet and puts that into the route reply packet. Figure 5b shows the route reply
packet being sent by the destination itself. To send the route reply packet, the responding node
must have a route to the source. If it has a route to the source in its route cache, it can use that
route. The reverse of route record can be used if symmetric links are supported. In case symmetric
links are not supported, the node can initiate route discovery to source and piggyback the route
reply on this new route request.

DSRP uses two types of packets for route maintenance:- Route Error packet and
Acknowledgements. When a node encounters a fatal transmission problem at its data link layer, it
generates a Route Error packet. When a node receives a route error packet, it removes the hop in
error from it's route cache. All routes that contain the hop in error are are truncated at that point.
Acknowledgment packets are used to verify the correct operation of the route links. This also
includes passive acknowledgments in which a node hears the next hop forwarding the packet along
the route.

1.3.2.2 Adhoc on Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) Protocol

Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) is an improvement on the DSDV algorithm.
AODV minimizes the number of broadcasts by creating routes on-demand as opposed to DSDV
that maintains the list of all the routes.

To find a path to the destination, the source broadcasts a route request packet. The neighbors in
turn broadcast the packet to their neighbors till it reaches an intermediate node that has a recent
route information about the destination or till it reaches the destination (Fig. 5). A node discards a
route request packet that it has already seen. The route request packet uses sequence numbers to
ensure that the routes are loop free and to make sure that if the intermediate nodes reply to route
requests, they reply with the latest information only.

When a node forwards a route request packet to its neighbors, it also records in its tables the node
from which the first copy of the request came. This information is used to construct the reverse
path for the route reply packet. AODV uses only symmetric links because the route reply packet
follows the reverse path of route request packet. As the route reply packet traverses back to the
source (Fig. 6), the nodes along the path enter the forward route into their tables.

If the source moves then it can reinitiate route discovery to the destination. If one of the
intermediate nodes move then the moved nodes neighbor realizes the link failure and sends a link
failure notification to its upstream neighbors and so on till it reaches the source upon which the
source can reinitiate route discovery if needed.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
 Fig. 5: Propagation of Route Request (RREQ) Packet

Fig. 6: Path taken by the Route Reply (RREP) Packet

Advantages
1. Because of its reactive nature, AODV can handle highly dynamic behavior of Vehicle Ad-
hoc networks.
2. Used for both unicasts and multicasts using the ’J’ (Join multicast group) flag in the
packets.

Disadvantages
1. Requirement on broadcast medium: The algorithm expects/requires that the nodes in the
broadcast medium can detect each other’s broadcasts.
2. Overhead on the bandwidth: Overhead on bandwidth will be occurred compared to DSR,
when an RREQ travels from node to node in the process of discovering the route info on
demand, it sets up the reverse path in itself with the addresses of all the nodes through
which it is passing and it carries all this info all its way.
3. No reuse of routing info: AODV lacks an efficient route maintenance technique. The
routing info is always obtained on demand, including for common case traffic.
MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
 4. It is vulnerable to misuse: The messages can be misused for insider attacks including
route disruption, route invasion, node isolation, and resource consumption.
5. AODV lacks support for high throughput routing metrics: AODV is designed to
support the shortest hop count metric. This metric favors long, low bandwidth links over
short, high-bandwidth links.
6. High route discovery latency: AODV is a reactive routing protocol. This means that
AODV does not discover a route until a flow is initiated. This route discovery latency result
can be high in large-scale mesh networks.

1.3.3 Proactive vs. Reactive vs. Hybrid Routing

The tradeoffs between proactive and reactive routing strategies are quite complex. Which approach
is better depends on many factors, such as the size of the network, the mobility, the data traffic and
so on. Proactive routing protocols try to maintain routes to all possible destinations, regardless of
whether or not they are needed. Routing information is constantly propagated and maintained. In
contrast, reactive routing protocols initiate route discovery on the demand of data traffic. Routes
are needed only to those desired destinations. This routing approach can dramatically reduce
routing overhead when a network is relatively static and the active traffic is light. However, the
source node has to wait until a route to the destination can be discovered, increasing the response
time. The hybrid routing approach can adjust its routing strategies according to a network's
characteristics and thus provides an attractive method for routing in MANETs. However, a
network's characteristics, such as the mobility pattern and the traffic pattern, can be expected to be
dynamic. The related information is very difficult to obtain and maintain. This complexity makes
dynamically adjusting routing strategies hard to implement.

1.3.4 Comparison between DSDV and AODV

After reviewing the concept of wireless ad-hoc networks and routing protocols, we are comparing
two protocols namely, AODV and DSDV.
1. DSDV is a proactive routing protocol, which maintains routes to each and every node in the
network, while AODV is a reactive routing protocol which finds the path on demand or
whenever the route is required.
2. Broadcasting in DSDV is done periodically to maintain routing updates and in AODV, only
hello messages are propagated to its neighbors to maintain local connectivity.
3. DSDV routing algorithm maintains a sequence number concept for updating the latest
information for a route. Even, the same concept is adapted by AODV routing protocol.
4. Due to the periodic updates being broadcasted in DSDV, bandwidth is wasted when the nodes
are stationary. But, this is not the case with AODV, as it propagates only hello messages to
its neighbours.
5. For sending data to a particular destination, there is no need to find a route as DSDV routing
protocol maintains all the routes in the routing tables for each node. While, AODV has to find
a route before sending a data.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
6. Overhead in DSDV is more when the network is large and it becomes hard to maintain the
routing tables at every node. But, in AODV overhead is less as it maintains small tables to
maintain local connectivity.
7. DSDV cannot handle mobility at high speeds due to lack of alternative routes hence routes in
routing table is stale. While in AODV this is the other way, as it find the routes on demand.
8. Throughput decreases comparatively in DSDV as it needs to advertise periodic updates and
even-driven updates. If the node mobility is high then occurrence of event driven updates are
more. But in AODV it doesn’t advertise any routing updates and hence the throughput is
stable.

1.3.5 Comparison between DSR and AODV

Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) and AdHoc On Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) are
both routing protocols for wireless mesh/ad hoc networks. Both the protocols employ different
mechanisms that result in varied performance levels. DSR and AODV can be compared and
evaluated based on the packet delivery ratio, normalized MAC load, normalized routing load, and
average end-to-end delay by altering the number of sources, speed, and pause time.

Both DSR and AODV are demand-driven protocols which form a route on demand when a
transmitting computer desires a route. The main difference between DSR and AODV is the source
routing feature. The DSR is based on source routing in which all the routing information such as
is maintained at the mobile nodes. The DSR computes the routes and also updates them. The source
routing is a technique in which the packet sender identifies the entire sequence of the node into
which the packet has to pass through. The packet sender lists the route in the packet’s header so
that the next node to which the packet has to be transmitted can be identified by the address on the
way to the destination host. The AODV uses a combination of a DSR and DSDV mechanism. It
uses the route discovery and route maintenance from a DSR and hop-by-hop routing, periodic
advertisements, sequence numbers from DSDV. The AODV easily overcomes the counting to
infinity and Bellman Ford problems, and it also provides quick convergence whenever the ad hoc
network topology is altered.
When DSR and AODV are analyzed using a packet delivery ratio parameter by varying the
paused time in the intervals of 0, 10, 20, 40, 100, the results obtained for both on demand routing
protocols look similar.
The normalized routing load is analyzed for both protocols by varying paused times.
The values for the DSR protocol were less as compared to the AODV which show fairly stable
results even after increasing the number of sources. If normalized routing load is stable, the
protocol is considered to be scalable. The routing overhead for AODV is mainly from the route
requests. DSR finds the route in the cache as a result of aggressive caching. This helps to avoid a
frequent route discovery process in DSR thereby decreasing the routing overhead for DSR when
compared to AODV.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
The normalized MAC load is analyzed by varying different paused times. The values for AODV
is less when compared to DSR when analyzed for lower paused times.

When it comes to performance comparison between the two protocols, the cache staleness and
high MAC overhead degrade the performance of DSR in high mobility scenarios. In lower-
mobility scenarios, the performance of DSR is better than AODV as the route is always found
quickly in cache avoiding the route discovery process.

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur
 References

1. http://www8.cs.umu.se/education/examina/Rapporter/KrishnaGorantala.pdf
2. David B. Johnson, Davis A. Maltz, "Dynamic Source Routing in Ad Hoc Networks",
Mobile Computing, T. Imielinski and H. Korth, Eds., Kulwer, 1996, pp. 152-81.
3. Charles E. Perkins, Elizabeth M. Royer, Samir R. Das, "Ad Hoc On-demand Distance
Vector Routing", October 99 IETF Draft, 33 pages.
4. A. Iwata, C.-C. Chiang, G. Pei, M. Gerla, and T.-W. Chen, "Scalable Routing Strategies
for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks" IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications,
Special Issue on Ad-Hoc Networks, Aug. 1999, pp.1369-79.
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/NRL/wireless/PAPER/jsac99.ps.gz.
5. Tsu-Wei Chen and Mario Gerla, "Global State Routing: A New Routing Scheme for Ad-
hoc Wireless Networks" Proc. IEEE ICC'98, 5 pages.
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~atm/adhoc/paper-collection/gerla-gsr-icc98.pdf.
6. http://webhome.csc.uvic.ca/~wkui/Courses/wireless/Lecture4.pdf

MAHARAJA SURAJMAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY: Dr. Prabhjot Kaur