Experimental comparison of hybrid and proactive MANET routing protocols

The paper describes an experimental implementation of a QoS-aware hybrid routing protocol that uses a flexible mix of proactive and reactive routing techniques within mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). After a brief review of the benefits and applications of proactive, reactive (on-demand) and hybrid routing, the architectural details and protocol operation of Scientific Research Corporation\´s "wireless ad hoc routing protocol" (WARP) are given. The paper then discusses the laboratory testing methodology used during the development of WARP, and gives an experimental comparison of WARP with a proactive routing protocol, namely optimized link state routing (OLSR).