Location information services in mobile ad hoc networks

In previous years, many location based routing protocols have been developed for ad hoc networks. Some of these protocols assume a location service exists which provides location information on all the mobile nodes in the network. We evaluate three location service alternatives. One is a reactive protocol; the other two are proactive protocols. Of the proactive protocols, one sends location tables to neighbors and the other sends location information to all nodes. In our evaluation, one proactive protocol proved to have the best performance overall. Thus, we also evaluate the main input parameter associated with this protocol for optimal performance.