A Comparative Performance Evaluation of Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a group of wireless mobile nodes that can connect with each other over a number of hops without the need for centralized management or pre-existing infrastructure. MANET has been used in several commercial areas such as intelligent shipping systems, ad hoc gaming, and clever agriculture, and non-commercial areas such as army applications, disaster rescue, and wildlife observing domains. One of the main challenges in MANET is routing mobility management which affects the performance of MANET seriously. The routing protocols have been functionally classified into proactive routing protocols, reactive routing protocols, and hybrid routing protocols. The objective of this paper is to create observations about the advantages and disadvantages of these protocols. Thus, the aim of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of the three groups of MANET routing protocols by comparing their features and methods in terms of routing overhead, scalability, delay, and other factors. It was shown that the proactive protocols guarantee the availability of the routes. However, it suffers from scalability and overhead. Whereas, reactive protocols initiate route discovery only when data needs to be sent. However, reactive protocols introduce an undesirable delay due to route establishment, which affects the network performance. Hybrid protocols, attempt to utilize the beneficial features of both reactive and proactive protocols, hybrid protocols are suitable for large networks and keep up-to-date information, but they increase operational complexity. It was concluded that MANET needs enhancement with regard to routing in order to meet the required performance.

@article{Khudayer2023,
  title     = {A Comparative Performance Evaluation of Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {14},
  number    = {4},
  year      = {2023},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Baidaa Hamza Khudayer and Lial Raja Alzabin and Mohammed Anbar and Ragad M Tawafak and Tat-Chee Wan and Abir AlSideiri and Sohail Iqbal Malik and Taief Alaa Al-Amiedy},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2023.0140449},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2023.0140449}
}