Evaluation of the Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Routing protocols designed for wired networks cannot be used in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) due to the dynamic topology, limited throughput, and energy constraints. New routing protocols have been designed for use in MANETs, but have not been thoroughly tested under realistic conditions such as node movement, number of sources, the presence of obstacles, and node speed.This research evaluates the performance of ad hoc on-demand distance vector routing with respect to throughput, goodput ratio, end-to-end (ETE) delay, node pair packet delivery rate, and node pair end-to-end delay. It shows these performance metrics vary significantly according to the choice of mobility model, number of sources, and the presence or absence of obstacles. The mobility model explains 68% of the variation in node pair packet delivery rate. The mobility model explains between 8% and 53% of variation in the other performance metrics. Obstacles explain between 5% and 24% of variation, and have the greatest effect on ETE delay. Finally, the number of sources explains between 8% and 72% of variation in node pair ETE delay, throughput, goodput ratio, and node pair packet delivery rate. The number of sources does not have a significant affect on ETE delay.