Performance analysis of MANET routing protocols by varying mobility, speed and network load

Mobile ad-hoc network is a type of ad-hoc network where nodes change locations with time, configure themselves and get the information transmitted from source to destination without the help of any fixed router or base station. Hence, for efficient data transmission, it is critical to understand the type of routing algorithms that is being used by these networks. Since they have no fixed infrastructure routers to handle these tasks, it can be a monumental task for the mobile nodes to efficiently determine a path to forward and route their packets when they are at constant motion. In this paper, we make a comprehensive performance analysis of the various ad-hoc routing protocols, simulate them under various scenarios, analyze some important performance parameters to examine which routing protocol can be deemed efficient in what type of scenarios. This paper is divided into three different phases to make comprehensive analysis of the mobile ad-hoc routing protocols by varying mobility, speed and network load. Simulations results suggest that DSR should be the first preference in terms of small scale networks with various spend or mobility pattern. AODV or OLSR should be considered when the load of the network is increased.