Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks

Volume1 Issue 1
www.stmjournals.com

A Comparative Study of MANET Routing Protocols

Neeraj Kumar Pandey1*, Amit Kumar Mishra2, Pushpneel Verma1
1
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Uttar Pradesh Technical University, India
2
Uttarakhand Technical University, India

Abstract
Routing is a demanding issue in mobile ad-hoc network. Mobile means moving
geographically and ad hoc means impermanent without any fixed infrastructure so
mobile ad hoc networks are a kind of momentary networks in which nodes are moving
without any fixed infrastructure or centralized administration. The infrastructure less
and the dynamic nature of these networks demands new set of networking strategies to
be implemented in order to provide efficient uninterrupted communication. Due to
unbounded movement of nodes topology of the network is frequently changes. So it is
hard to perform optimally by any protocol in this varying environment. The various
routing protocols are analyzed and the advantages and disadvantages associated to
particular protocol is briefly discussed. The contribution of this paper is to focus on
comparative study of various routing protocol used in the ad-hoc network.

Keywords: MANET, routing protocol, DSDV, on demand routing, table driven

routing, hybrid routing, IETF

*Author for Correspondence E-mail [email protected]

INTRODUCTION problem includes most of the well known

In the past few years a lots of research is being protocols in this area are limited to a
done on the routing protocols of MANET particular scenario i.e. does not perform well
(Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork). These are the in all environments. This paper is organized as
network which is easily deployed on the follows. In section ``Classification of Routing
conditions where infrastructure development is Protocol’’ there is a classification of routing
not possible due to natural disaster like protocols. In ``Protocols Used In Manet’’
earthquake and floods etc. To find the section there is a comparative discussion is on
solution researchers focused on the some widely focused routing protocols. In the
development of the routing protocol which can next section we mention most of the protocols
perform well in such extreme conditions. that are currently under consideration by IETF
There are few key points which are needed to and conclusion are given at the end.
be kept in mind while implementing any
protocol i.e., throughput, power consumption, CLASSIFICATION OF ROUTING
number of retransmission. PROTOCOL
Routing protocol is basically classified on
In the ad-hoc network we are basically dealing formation of route to transmit the data packets
with the nodes that are in mobile state. So they from source to destination. In one type of
are changing their topology as they moves. We protocol the routing table is maintained to
are not having any infrastructure so we do not keep the record of the neighbors and in other
have any unlimited power supply. So power the route the searched when demand of the
consumption by a protocol to transmit packets route is produced.
from source to destination is a biggest
challenge for any routing protocol. The main

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Study of MANET Routing Protocols Pandey et al.
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Fig. 1: Classification of Routing Protocol.

Routing protocol is classified in following node. These tables are updated frequently in
categories: order to maintain consistent and accurate
i) Reactive Routing Protocol: Reactive network state information. He routing tables
protocol is also known as source initiated on are updated periodically whenever the network
demand routing protocol. In this protocol route topology changes. Proactive protocols are not
is discovered whenever it is needed nodes suitable for large networks as they need to
initiate route discovery on demand basis. maintain node entries for each and every node
Source node sees its route cache for the in the routing table of every node. These
available route from source to destination if protocols maintain different number of routing
the route is not available then it initiates route tables varying from protocol to protocol [2].
discovery process [1]. There are two major The example of proactive protocol is dynamic
component of on demand routing protocol: destination sequenced distance vector routing
Route Discovery: In this component the protocol (DSDV), wireless routing protocol
source node initiates route discovery on (WRP), cluster gateway switch routing
demand basis as opposed to maintain a protocol (CGSR).
complete list of routes for each destination. It iii) Hybrid Routing Protocol: While most of
set the link in order to send out and accept the the protocols presented for MANET are either
packet from a source node to destination node. proactive or reactive protocols. There is a
Route discovery process is used in on demand trade-off between proactive and reactive
routing by flooding the route request packets protocols [2]. It uses the route discovery and
throughout the network. route maintenance characteristic of the
Route Maintenance: Due to mobility of the reactive protocols and table maintenance of
nodes the topology of the network is changing the proactive protocol.
frequently so the cases of route failure arise The example of hybrid protocol is zone
due to link breakage. So periodic beaconing is routing protocol (ZRP) and sharp hybrid
being done to rectify this problem. adaptive routing protocol (SHARP).
The example of reactive protocol are the
dynamic source Routing (DSR), ad hoc on- PROTOCOLS USED IN MANET
demand distance vector routing (AODV), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR)
associativity based routing(ABR), signal Dynamic source routing (DSR) is an efficient
stability based adaptive routing protocol(SSA), and simple on-demand protocol considered to
temporary ordered routing protocol(TORA). restrict the bandwidth devoted to control
ii) Proactive Routing Protocols: Proactive packets in ad hoc wireless networks by
routing protocols are also called as table eliminating the periodic table-update messages
driven routing protocols. These protocols are required in the table-driven approach. The
extensions of the wired network routing basic approach of this protocol (and all other
protocols. They maintain the global topology on-demand routing protocols) during the route
information in the form of tables at every creation phase is to set up a route by

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 Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks
Volume 1, Issue 1
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completely self-organizing and self- Advantages

configuring without the need for any existing  It is a loop free protocol and never caught
network infrastructure or administration. by counting to infinite problems.
 Connection setup delay is very less.
Advantages  Small overhead message. If host has route
 Ability to turn around a source route to find information of active routes in routing table
a route back to the source of the original then overhead will be minimal of routing
route. processes.
 Route caching can further reduce route  Routes are established on demand and
discovery overhead. destination sequence numbers are used to
 Single route detection may surrender many find the latest route to the destination.
routes to the destination, due to intermediate
nodes replying from local caches. Disadvantages
 easily assured loop-free routing,  The processing demand is higher.
implementation in networks containing  Consumption of bandwidth is more in
unidirectional links sharing information.
 Intermediate nodes also employ the route  More time required to maintain the routing
cache information efficiently to diminish table.
the control overhead.  Transitional nodes can lead to inconsistent
routes if the source sequence number is
Disadvantages very old and the intermediate nodes have a
 Every node needs an awakening call to turn higher but not the latest destination
on to ever receiver. sequence number, thereby having old
 The route preservation system does not close entries.
by repair a broken link.  Multiple Route Reply packets in reply to a
 Decayed route cache information could also single Route Request packet can lead to
result in inconsistencies during the route heavy control overhead.
reorganization phase.  Periodic error conditions leads to
 Does not require similar links to find the superfluous bandwidth consumption.
suitable route.
 The performance degrades rapidly with Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm
increasing mobility. (TORA)
 Considerable routing overhead is involved Temporally ordered routing algorithm
due to the source-routing mechanism (TORA) is a source-initiated on demand
employed in DSR. This routing overhead is routing protocol which uses a link reversal
directly proportional to the path length. algorithm and provides loop-free multi-path
routes to a destination node. In TORA, each
Ad-hoc on Demand Distance Vector node maintains its on-hop local topology
Routing (AODV) information and also has the capability to
AODV routing protocol uses an on-demand detect partitions. TORA has the unique
approach for discovering routes, that is, a route property of limiting the control packets to a
is discovered only when it is needed by a small region during the reconfiguration
source node for transmitting data packets. It process initiated by a path break.
can communicate in both modes i.e. unicast
and multicast routing and it employs target Advantages
sequence number to recognize the most recent  It supports multiple routes to any source
path. It uses a sequence number ensuring that destination pair.
the nodes are fresh. So in this way AODV  By limiting the control packets for route
allow the nodes to acquire the route quickly reconfigurations to a small region, TORA
for their new destinations. It also allows the incurs less control overhead.
mobile nodes to respond to link breakages and  Able to detect partitions very quickly.
changes in network topology in a periodic  Loop Free Path
manner.

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Study of MANET Routing Protocols Pandey et al.
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Disadvantages WRP, like DSDV, maintains an up-to-date

 TORA is not energy efficient and does not view of the network, every node has a readily
scale to large networks. available route to every destination node in the
 The local reconfiguration of paths results in network. It differs from DSDV in table
non-optimal routes. maintenance and in the update procedures.
 It relies on synchronized clocks among While DSDV maintains only one topology
nodes in the network table, WRP uses a set of tables to maintain
more accurate information. The tables that are
Distance Sequenced Distance Vector maintained by a node are the following:
(DSDV) Routing Protocol distance table (DT), routing table (RT), link
DSDV is one of the first protocols proposed cost table (LCT), and a message
for ad hoc wireless networks. It is enhanced retransmission list (MRL). The DT contains
version of the distributed Bellman-Ford the network view of the neighbors of a node.
algorithm where each node maintains a table It contains a matrix where each element
that contains the shortest distance and the first contains the distance and the penultimate node
node on the shortest path to every other node reported by a neighbor for a particular
in the network. It incorporates table updates destination [3–5].
with increasing sequence number tags to
prevent loops, to counter the count-to-infinity Advantages
problem, and for faster convergence.  Implemented with the help of distributed
bellman-ford which has count to infinite
Advantages problem, can be solved by WRP.
 The availability of routes to all destinations  The link failure updates are sent to
at all times implies that much less delay is neighbors only results less bandwidth
involved in the route setup process. The consumption.
mechanism of incremental updates with  It has faster union and involves fewer table
sequence number tags makes the existing updates.
wired network protocols adaptable to ad hoc
wireless networks. Hence an existing wired Disadvantages
network protocol can be applied to ad hoc  Scalability is an issue in this protocol.
wireless networks with many fewer  The complication of maintenance of
modifications. multiple tables demands a larger memory
 In this protocol sequence number is used so and greater processing power from nodes.
that there is no loop exists.  Not appropriate for more dynamic and also
for very large ad hoc wireless networks.
Disadvantages
 The periodic (regular) update process of Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP)
routing table required more power so the Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) is a hybrid
battery consumption is high. routing protocol which effectively combines
 It does not support multiple path routing. the best features of both proactive and reactive
 It is hard to determine the time day in the routing protocols. The key concept employed
advertisement of routes. in this protocol is to use a proactive routing
 The preservation of the route is costly. scheme within a limited zone in the r-hop
neighborhood of every node, and use a
Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP) reactive routing scheme for nodes beyond this
The wireless routing protocol, similar to zone. An intra-zone routing protocol (IARP) is
DSDV, inherits the properties of the used in the zone where a particular node
distributed Bellman-Ford algorithm. To employs proactive routing. The reactive
counter the count-to-infinity problem and to routing protocol used beyond this zone is
enable faster convergence, it employs a unique referred to as inter-zone routing protocol
method of maintaining information regarding (IERP). The routing zone of a given node is a
the shortest distance to every destination node subset of the network, within which all nodes
in the network and the penultimate hop node are reachable within less than or equal to zone
on the path to every destination node. Since radius hops.

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 Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks
Volume 1, Issue 1
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Advantages Disadvantages
 It reduces the control overhead compared to  In the absence of query control, ZRP tends
the Route Request flooding mechanism to produce higher control overhead than the
employed in on-demand approaches and the aforementioned schemes. This can happen
periodic flooding of routing information due to the large overlapping of nodes routing
packets in table-driven approaches. zones.
 ZRP provides support for unidirectional  Total ZRP traffic increases with node
links. density.
 The ZRP can determine the appropriate zone  Short latency for finding new routes.
radius dynamically on-demand.

Table 1: Comparison of Different Routing Protocols.

PROTOCOLS THAT ARE  Distance Routing Effect Algorithm for

CURRENTLY UNDER Mobility (DREAM)
CONSIDERATION BY IETF  Zone-based Hierarchical Link State Routing
 Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector Protocol (ZHLS)
Routing Protocol (DSDV)  Hierarchical State Routing (HSR)
 Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector  Cluster Based Routing Protocols (CBRP)
Routing (AODV)  Hybrid Routing Protocol (HRP)
 Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP)  Distributed Dynamic Routing Algorithm
 Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) (DDR)
 Temporary Ordered Routing Algorithm  Distributed Spanning Tree Protocol (DST)
(TORA)  Flow Oriented Protocol (FORP)
 Associativity Based Routing (ABR)  Fuzzy Sighted Link State Algorithms
 Signal Stability Routing (SSR) (FSLS)
 Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP)  Lightweight Mobile Routing (LMR)
 Cluster-head Gateway Switch Routing  Link Reversal Routing (LRR)
Protocol (CGSR)  Topology Broadcast Based on Reverse Path
 Global State Routing (GSR) Forwarding (TBRPF)
 Fisheye State Routing (FSR)  Terminode Routing (TLR/TRR/AGPF)
 Source Tree Adaptive (STAR)  Witness Aided Routing (WAR)
 Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR)  Geographic Distance Routing (GEDIR)

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Study of MANET Routing Protocols Pandey et al.
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 Mobile Ad-hoc On Demand Data Delivery and Software Engineering, 2013; 3(2):
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CONCLUSION
Information Research Institute, University
This research paper, an effort is being made to
of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW
comparative study of various type of MANET
,AustraliaMotorola Australia Research
routing protocol viz. DSR, AODV, TORA,
Centre, 12 Lord St., Botany, NSW 2525,
DSDV, WRP and ZRP. It simply compares the
June 2003.
difference and performance in different
4. Amit Shrivastava Aravinth Raj
circumstances and the advantage and
Shanmogavel Overview of Routing
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Protocols in MANET’s and Enhancements
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in Reactive Protocols, Department of
made which will help to take decision to select
Computer Science Lamar University
the correct protocol so that all the requirement
P.O.Box 10056 Beaumont TX 77710.
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5. IJETAE(ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2,
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Issue 3, March 2012). Comparison Of
Proactive And Reactive Routing Protocols
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