Electrical and Computer Engineering Department-College of Engineering-Sultan Qaboos University
Performance Comparison of Manet Routing Protocols Under UDP &
TCP Traffics
Zahra Shannan AL Balushi
Abstract
One of the main attractive features of Mobile Ad-hoc networks (MANETs) is their ability to
operate in a standalone fashion without a central administration. As a consequence, they can be
used in many useful and important applications including military fields, rescue operations, and
for quick file sharing. This research presents a performance analysis of three well-known
MANET routing protocols, notably Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Dynamic
Source routing (DSR) and Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), using the widelyused NS-2 software simulation tool. Both AODV and DSR are reactive (on- demand) routing
protocols whereas DSDV is proactive. Our simulation study assesses the impact of varying node
mobility, network load, and network size on the performance of the three routing protocols with
respect to the following performance metrics: packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and
throughput. Simulations are conducted using two transport protocols, namely TCf' and UDP. Tep
is a reliable protocol and it carries over 80% of the internet traffic today, serving many data
applications like file transfer and WWW browsing [38, 40]. Hence, its deployment over
MANETs is essential. UDP, on the other hand, is an unreliable protocol and it is used in many
applications that require minimal delays like video streaming and Voice over IP (VoIP) [57]. Our
simulation results reveal that AODV outperforms both DSDV and DSR in terms of packet delays
even in most congested network conditions for both TCl' and UDP traffic. Moreover, DSR
experiences performance degradation despite the fact that it is a reactive protocol like AODV.
DSR can operate more efficiently in small sized networks under low traffic conditions. However,
for larger networks and increased congestion and continuous node mobility, AODV outperforms
both DSR and DSDV in terms of throughput and packet delays. DSDV, on the other hand, can
work efficiently in small-sized networks and low node mobility. Our results also show that
packet delays for TCP traffic are higher than that for its UDP counterpart. This finding highlights
the fact that lot of research still needs to be carried out in order to make MANEI 'protocols more
efficient for I'CP traffic.