Performance Analysis and Comparison of Ad Hoc Routing Protocols by the Impact of Node Density

An Ad-Hoc Network is a self-configuring network of mobile nodes connected by wireless links, to form an arbitrary topology. The nodes are free to move randomly. Thus the network's wireless topology may be unpredictable and may change rapidly. Minimal configuration, quick deployment and absence of a central governing authority make ad hoc networks suitable for emergency situations like natural disasters, military conflicts, emergency medical situations etc. Many routing protocols for ad hoc networks had been proposed already. The routing protocols are broadly classified into Proactive, Reactive and Hybrid protocols. This paper evaluates the performance of FSR (Proactive), AODV (Reactive) and ZRP (Hybrid) routing protocols using qualnet simulator.