Routing Protocols in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

June 20, 2012.

Fatima Jinnah Women University

Department of Software engineering 2009-BSE-019 Pakistan

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Abstract:
Wireless mobile ad-hoc networks are characterized as networks without any physical connections. In these networks users wanting to communicate with each other form a temporary network, without any form of centralized administration; there is no fixed topology due to the mobility of nodes, interference, multipath propagation and path loss. Ad-hoc networking means each node participating in the network acts both as host and a router and must therefore is willing to forward packets for other nodes. For this purpose, a routing protocol is needed. Due to the mobility of nodes a dynamic routing protocol is needed for these networks to function properly. Many Routing protocols have been developed for accomplishing this task. In this research paper we study, understand, analyze and discuss all mobile ad-hoc routing protocols and compares two routing protocols on the basis of performance.

Introduction: 1.1 Background:

Wireless communication between mobile users is becoming more popular than ever before. This due to recent technological advances in laptop computers and wireless data communication devices, such as wireless modems and wireless LANs. This has lead to lower prices and higher data rates, which are the two main reasons why mobile computing continues to enjoy rapid growth. There are two distinct approaches for enabling wireless communication between two hosts. The first approach is to let the existing cellular network infrastructure carry data as well as voice. The second approach is to form an ad-hoc network among all users wanting to communicate with each other. Ad-hoc networks have several advantages compared to traditional cellular systems. These advantages include: On demand setup Fault tolerance Unconstrained connectivity Ad-hoc networks do not rely on any pre-established infrastructure and can therefore be deployed in places with no infrastructure.

1.2 Disposition
To summarize, this paper is organized in 5 chapters where Chapter 1 deals with an introduction. Chapter 2 is general concepts about mobile ad hoc networks and routing. Chapter 3 describes the different routing protocols and explains briefly about these 4 routing protocols with their advantages and disadvantages. Chapter 4 provides comparison of these discussed protocols. Related work and conclusion is drawn in chapter 5.

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1.3Purpose of this work

Wireless ad-hoc networks have gained a lot of importance in wireless communications. Wireless communication is established by nodes acting as routers and transferring packets from one to another in ad-hoc networks. Routing in these networks is highly complex due to moving nodes and hence many protocols have been developed. This paper concentrate mainly on routing protocols and their functionality in Ad-hoc networks with a discussion being made on four selected protocols ending with their comparison.

1.4 Project organization

The following persons have been involved in this master thesis project:

Ms Tahira Mahboob. 2. General Concepts

2.1 Wireless ad-hoc networks 2.1.1 General Mobile Ad-hoc networks are self-organizing and self-configuring multihop wireless networks where, the structure of the network changes dynamically. This is mainly due to the mobility of the nodes [2]. Nodes in these networks utilize the same random access wireless channel, cooperating in a friendly manner to engaging themselves in multihop forwarding. The nodes in the network not only act as hosts but also as routers that route data to/from other nodes in network [2]. In mobile ad-hoc networks where there is no infrastructure support as is the case with wireless networks, and since a destination node might be out of range of a source node transmitting packets; a routing procedure is always needed to find a path so as to forward the packets appropriately between the source and the destination. Within a cell, a base station can reach all mobile nodes without routing via broadcast in common wireless networks. In the case of ad-hoc networks, each node must be able to forward data for other nodes. This creates additional problems along with the problems of dynamic topology which is unpredictable connectivity changes. 2.1.2 Problems with routing in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks Asymmetric links: mostly wired networks rely on symmetric links which remains static but in MANET nodes are mobile and constantly changing their location. Routing Overhead: In mobile adhoc networks, as the nodes are mobile some stale routes are generated in the routing table which leads to unnecessary routing overhead. Interference: major issue with mobile ad-hoc networks is as links come and go depending on the transmission characteristics, one transmission interfere with another one and can corrupt the total transmission.

3. Routing protocols in Mobile adhoc networks:

MANET serves as a meeting forum where people can discuss issues concerning adhoc networks. We have many proposed protocols but we have chosen to analyze AODV, DSR and TORA theoretically. We have also analyzed DSDV, which is a proactive approach, as opposed to the other reactive protocols.
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3.1 Destination Sequenced Distance Vector - DSDV The Destination Sequence Distance Vector (DSDV) [2][4] is a proactive unicast mobile ad hoc network routing protocol based on the traditional Bellman-Ford algorithm. However, their mechanisms to improve routing performance in mobile ad hoc networks are quite different. The advantage with DSDV over traditional distance vector protocols is that DSDV guarantees loopfreedom, to provide loop freedom DSDV uses sequence number to tag each route. It provides a single path to a destination, which is selected using the distance vector shortest path routing algorithm. In order to reduce the amount of overhead transmitted through the network; two types of update messages defined: full and incremental dump. The full dump carries all available routing information and the incremental dump that only carries the information that has changed since the last dump. In routing tables of DSDV, an entry stores the next hop towards a destination, the cost metric for the routing path to the destination and a destination sequence number that is created by the destination. Sequence numbers are used in DSDV to distinguish decayed routes from fresh ones and avoid formation of route loops However, DSDV still introduces large amounts of overhead to the network due to the requirement of the periodic update messages, and the overhead grows according to O (N2). Therefore the protocol will not scale in large network since a large portion of the network bandwidth is used in the updating procedures. 3.2 Ad-hoc On Demand Distance vector AODV The Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) protocol [5] is a reactive unicast routing protocol (Unicast
routing is the forwarding of traffic destined to a single location on an internetwork from a source host to a destination host by using routers) for mobile ad hoc networks. As a reactive

routing protocol, AODV only needs to maintain the routing information about the active paths. In AODV, routing information is maintained in routing tables at nodes. Every mobile node keeps a next-hop routing table, which contains the destinations to which it currently has a route. A routing table entry expires if it has not been used or reactivated for a pre-specified expiration time. Moreover, AODV adopts the destination sequence number technique used by DSDV in an on-demand way. In AODV, when a source node wants to send packets to and no route is available, it initiates a route discovery operation. In this operation, the source broadcasts route request (RREQ) packets. A RREQ includes addresses of the source, destination, the broadcast ID, which is used as its identifier, the last seen sequence number as well as the source nodes sequence number. Sequence numbers are important to ensure loop-free and up-to-date routes. To reduce the flooding overhead, The RREQ starts with a small TTL value. If the destination is not found, the TTL is increased in following RREQs. In AODV, each node maintains a cache to keep track of RREQs it has received and to store the path back to each RREQ originator. When the destination or a node that has a route to the destination receives the RREQ, it checks the destination sequence numbers it currently knows and the one specified in the RREQ. To guarantee the freshness of the routing information, a route
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reply (RREP) packet is created and forwarded back to the source only if the destination sequence number is equal to or greater than the one specified in RREQ. AODV uses only symmetric links and a RREP follows the reverse path of the respective RREP. Upon receiving the RREP packet, each intermediate node along the route updates its next-hop table entries with respect to the destination node. The redundant RREP packets or RREP packets with lower destination sequence number will be dropped. In AODV, a node uses hello messages to notify its existence to its neighbors. Therefore, the link status to the next hop in an active route can be monitored. When a node discovers a link disconnection, it broadcasts a route error (RERR) packet to its neighbors, which in turn propagates the RERR packet towards nodes whose routes may be affected by the disconnected link. Then, the affected source can re-initiate a route discovery operation if the route is still needed. 3.3 Dynamic Source Routing DSR The Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) [5][1] is a reactive unicast routing protocol. In DSR, each data packet contains complete routing information to reach its destination and each node uses caching technology to maintain route information. When a source node wants to send a packet, it firstly consults its route cache. If the required route is available, the source node includes the routing information inside the data packet before sending it. Otherwise, the source node initiates a route discovery operation by broadcasting route request packets. A route request packet contains addresses of both the source and the destination and a unique number to identify the request. Receiving a route request packet, a node checks its route cache. If the node doesnt have routing information for the requested destination, it appends its own address to the route record field of the route request packet. Then, the request packet is forwarded to its neighbors. To limit the communication overhead of route request packets, a node processes route request packets that both it has not seen before and its address is not presented in the route record field. If the route request packet reaches the destination or an intermediate node has routing information to the destination, a route reply packet is generated. When the route reply packet is generated by the destination, it comprises addresses of nodes that have been traversed by the route request packet. Otherwise, the route reply packet comprises the addresses of nodes the route request packet has traversed concatenated with the route in the intermediate nodes route cache. After being created, either by the destination or an intermediate node, a route reply packet needs a route back to the source. The route reply packet is sent using the collected routing information in the route record field, but in a reverse order as shown in Figure 4.

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In DSR, when the data link layer detects a link disconnection, a ROUTE_ERROR packet is sent backward to the source. After receiving the ROUTE_ERROR packet, the source node initiates another route discovery operation 3.4 Temporally-Ordered Routing Algorithm TORA Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) [1][3][5] is a distributed routing protocol. The basic underlying algorithm is link reversal algorithms. TORA is designed to minimize reaction to topological changes. A key concept in its design is that control messages are typically localized to a very small set of nodes. It guarantees that all routes are loop-free and provides multiple routes for any source/destination pair. TORA can be separated into three basic functions: creating routes, maintaining routes, and erasing routes. The creation of routes basically assigns directions to links in an undirected network or portion of the network, building a directed acyclic graph (DAG) rooted at the destination (See Figure 5). TORA associates a height with each node in the network. All messages in the network flow downstream, from a node with higher height to a node with lower height. 4. Comparison So far, the protocols have been analyzed theoretically. Table 1 summarizes and compares the result from these theoretical/qualitative analyses and shows what properties the protocols have and do not have. DSDV AODV DSR TORA Yes Yes Yes Yes Loop free No No Yes Yes Multiple paths Yes Yes Yes Yes Distributed Reactive Reactive Reactive Routing info Proactive acquirement /maintenance Unidirectional link support Multicast Periodic broadcast No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No No No Yes

5.1 Related work: Many routing protocols have been proposed [1][2][3][5], but few comparisons between the different protocols have been made[1][2]. This research paper analyzes these protocols on the basis of performance. Few comparisons between the different protocols have been made. Where the some protocols are proactive protocol depending on routing tables which are maintained at each node some are reactive protocol, which finds a route to a destination on demand, whenever communication is needed. Considering the bandwidth, throughput and packet loss, out of all protocols, DSDV [4] is best suited for only smaller networks and AODV is suited for general Adhoc networks.
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We present a number of ways of classification or categorization of these routing protocols and did the performance comparison of routing protocols [1][2][3][4]. It is difficult for the quantitative comparison of the most of the ad hoc routing protocols due to the fact that simulations have been done independent of one another using different metrics and using different simulators. . This paper does the realistic comparison of routing protocols [1][2][3][4][5]. 5.2 Conclusion: Routing is an essential component of communication protocols in mobile ad hoc networks. The design of the protocols are driven by specific goals and requirements based on respective assumptions about the network properties or application area. This paper tries to review typical routing protocols reveal the characteristics and trade-offs. There are still many issues which have not been considered in this report e.g. related to quality of service .We have discussed routing protocols, highlighting their features, differences, and characteristics. Finally, we have identified possible applications and challenges facing ad hoc mobile wireless networks. The field of ad hoc mobile networks is rapidly growing and changing, and while there are still many challenges that need to be met, it is likely that such networks will see widespread use within the next few years. 5.3 Future work Research on Manets for an adaptive MANET routing protocol in which the protocol can choose the combination of different modules that is the most efficient for the current environment or in which MANET nodes can choose different protocols according to the environmental parameters is still in progress, further study of node mobility is also a promising research direction. Such a study might aid in the design of simulation mobility models, improve estimates of link and path lifetimes, and improve the performance of MANET routing protocols.

References:
[1] Routing Protocols in Wireless Ad-hoc Networks -A Simulation Study By Tony Larsson, Nicklas Hedman 2008:362 ISSN: 1402-1617 ISRN: LTU-EX--98/362SE. [2] Routing Protocols in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks By Krishna GorantalaUmea University Department of Computing Science SE-901 87 UMEA SWEDEN June 15, 2006. [3] A Review of Current Routing Protocols for Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks Elizabeth M. Royer, University of California, Santa Barbara Chai-Keong Toh, Georgia Institute of Technology [4] An Efficient DSDV Routing Protocol for MANET and its usefulness for providing Internet Access to Ad Hoc Hosts October 23, 2010. [5] A Survey of Mobile Ad Hoc network Routing Protocols* kaiser@ivs.cs.uni-magdeburg.de Document Identifier TR-4 Revised 21 October 2005
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