Impact of High Mobility and Rapid Change in Number of Mobile Nodes on the Performance of Manet Protocols

Abstract

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes that are dynamically and arbitrarily located in such a manner that the interconnections between nodes are capable of changing on a continual basis. In order to facilitate communication within the network, a routing protocol is used to discover routes between nodes. The primary goal of such an ad-hoc network routing protocol is correct and efficient route establishment between a pair of nodes so that messages may be delivered in a timely manner. In such networks, nodes are able to move and synchronize with their neighbors. Due to mobility, connections in the network can change dynamically and nodes can be added and removed at any time. One of the issues in MANET is resource management which includes routing and for routing there are particular routing protocols that gives better performance when checked with certain parameters. Many routing protocols for Mobile ad-hoc network have been proposed. Among them, DSDV is a representative table-driven protocol, while AODV and DSR are two representative on-demand protocols. In this thesis, we have analyzed the performance of above cited three routing protocols by varying the number of connections, varying the pause time and high changes in mobility. The performance matrix includes PDR (Packet Delivery Ratio), Throughput, Average End to End Delay and Packet Dropped. As per our findings the differences in the protocol mechanics lead to significant performance differentials for these protocols. The performance differentials are analyzed using varying simulation time. These simulations are carried out using the ns-2 network simulator. The results presented in this work illustrate the importance in carefully evaluating and implementing routing protocols in an ad hoc environment.