To Investigate the Performance of MANET Routing Protocols with Varying Node Densities

A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile nodes without any fixed infrastructure in which each node act as a transmitter, router and data sink. In MANET local nodes are connected with each other and communicate to find new routes to the nodes which are out of its transmission range. A network design is said to be efficient if the path routing and protocol selection is done carefully. In MANET, every routing protocol has its own advantages and disadvantages depending upon the performance in the network. The protocol to be selected for designed network should be best in terms of data delivery, data integrity and must be able to overcome some difficulties such as congestion and node connectivity. In this thesis work, performance analysis is carried out on routing protocols of type reactive (Ad Hoc Ondemand Distance Vector (AODV)), pro-active (Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR)) and hybrid (Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP)) by varying node density to determine the best among them. The performance of these routing protocols is evaluated analytically and through simulation using an Optimized Network Engineering Tools (OPNET) Modeler. Performance is evaluated and analyzed using OPNET Modeler by considering metrics: throughput, network load, retransmission, data dropped and delay.