Performance Comparison of Multi-Path AODV and DSR Protocols in Hybrid Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have gained a lot of attention recently. Features such as self-configuration, self-healing and the low cost of equipment and deployment make WMN technology a promising platform for a wide range of applications. Traditional ad-hoc routing protocols are typically used to deal with the dynamic nature of these networks, which is mainly due to mobility. However, these protocols typically suffer from a number of shortcomings, such as high routing overhead and limited scalability. More recently, it has been shown that multi-path ad-hoc routing protocols have a number of advantages over their single-path counterparts, including reduced overhead and increased reliability. This motivates the work presented in this paper, which provides a comparison of AOMDV and DSR-MP, the multi-path variants of AODV and DSR. We specifically study the performance of these protocols in a hybrid wireless mesh network, where static mesh routers and mobile clients collaborate to implement network functionality such as routing and packet forwarding. Based on extensive simulations, we present a comparative analysis covering performance metrics such as packet loss, latency and path optimality.