A Simulation Based Performance Comparison of Routing Protocols on Mobile Ad-hoc Network

Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of wireless nodes that can dynamically form a network to exchange information without using any pre-existing fixed network infrastructure. In these networks there is no fixed topology due to the mobility of nodes, interference, multipath propagation and path loss. Hence a dynamic routing protocol is needed for these networks to function properly. Many Routing protocols have been developed for accomplishing this task. In this paper, a simulation based performance study and analysis is performed on two routing protocols over MANET. Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) are analyzed in this work. The performance differentials are analyzed using varying simulation time. These simulations are carried out using the ns-2 network simulator.