A Performance Based Comparison between AODV & DSR Routing ... · classification of MANET routing protocols into three broad classes Proactive, Reactive and Hybrid. We can measure

© 2013, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 849

Volume 3, Issue 4, April 2013 ISSN: 2277 128X

International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering Research Paper Available online at: www.ijarcsse.com

A Performance Based Comparison between AODV & DSR

Routing Protocols Vinay Kumar Sharma Roshan Srivastava

M Tech CSE, Lovely Professional University, India Asst. Professor CSE, Lovely Professional University, India

Abstract— Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a kind of network formed by wireless mobile devices on the fly. The

mobile devices can move freely and dynamically within their self organize and temporary ad hoc network topologies.

This facility provides people and devices to seamlessly work in the areas where no pre-existing communication

infrastructure exists e.g., disaster environment and in the battle fields. To provide communication within MANET a

routing protocol is used for efficient route establishment between wireless mobile devices. Mobility and power

constraints are the important factors to be considered in multi-hop mobile ad hoc networks because each device in the

network acts as a router and packet forwarder. This dependency places bandwidth, power computation demands on

mobile host to be taken into account while choosing the protocol. The continuous movement of wireless mobile

devices in the MANET makes it difficult to implement routing protocols used in wired network. We can provide a

classification of MANET routing protocols into three broad classes Proactive, Reactive and Hybrid. We can measure

the performance of MANETs routing protocols by using various simulators. In our simulation we take OPNET 14.5

as a simulator. Performance of these protocols varies due to network topology and density of mobile nodes in the

MANET. In this paper we provide an overview of AODV & DSR routing protocols with performance comparison

between them and suggest which protocol may perform best in the MANETs with small region and highly dense

mobile devices.

Keywords— AODV, DSR, ETE, MANET, RREQ, RREP, RERR, Proactive, Reactive, Hybrid,

I. INTRODUCTION

Mobile Ad hoc Network is infrastructure less, decentralized and on the fly communication network between wireless

mobile devices. There is no requirement of any other device other than communicating devices for the communication.

This network is free from centralized control. The communicating wireless mobile devices take care of establishing and

maintaining connection between each other. Each wireless mobile device has in built routing capability feature hence

they may associate with each other as per the requirement of the network. This self management capability of the ad-hoc

network is suitable for the environments where cost of the infrastructure setup is very high or no possibility of

infrastructure setup. MANET is very useful in the situations where we require an urgency of communication e.g.

emergency search and rescue operations in disaster-hit areas, automated battlefield [4]. An example of MANET is shown

in the figure. A subscript number is used to distinguish the nodes.

Figure 1 Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET)

It may be possible that the next generation will use mobile ad hoc networks very frequently due to low deploying cost

and time without worry of management. There is always requirement of routing protocols that will satisfy the MANET

characteristics for transmitting data from a wireless mobile device to the other wireless mobile devices via number of

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Sharma et al., International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering 3(4),

April - 2013, pp. 849-857


between devices. A user must choose a routing protocol in such a way that the routing protocol will find, establish

maintain the best path among the communicating devices. Routing protocol must minimize the routing overhead,

maximize the bandwidth utilization and flexible towards frequent topological changes in the MANET. Hence designing a

routing protocol is one of the key research areas in MANETs. Various routing protocols for MANET are exist under the

Proactive, Reactive and Hybrid classes named as AODV, CGSR, DSDV, DSR, DYMO, FSR, GSR, OLSR, STAR,

TORA, WRP and ZRP etc [20].

II. RELATED WORK

There are a lot of factors that can be used to evaluate the various routing protocols in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs)

have been mentioned in the literature.

A performance evaluation of reactive (AODV, DSR) and proactive (OLSR, DSDV, TORA) routing protocols was

conducted by Singh Sukhbir, Dhariwal Sandeep, Chahal Kavita and Kaushik Sunil Kumar, based on the performance

criteria i.e. packet delivery ratio (PDR), average end to end delay (Delay), routing overhead and throughput under

various mobility model (RPGM, CMM, RWP) using the network simulator NS-2 in September, 2012 in India. They

concluded that mobility pattern of node has significant impact on routing and the reactive protocols were performed well

with respect to PDR, Delay, Normalized routing load (NRL) and throughput. The delay is greater in DSR as compare to

AODV. In AODV throughput and PDR is high when the number of nodes was increased. An another evaluation was

completed by Singh Sukhvir and Dalal Soni in September, 2012 on On-demand routing protocols (AODV, DSR) under

the greater mobility with lesser pause time, varying offered load and large traffic sources considering the performance

metric: the packet size/average throughput of generating packets, packet size/average simulation end to end delay, packet

send time at source node/end to end delay using NS-2 simulator. They concluded that for large number of nodes Delay is

lesser in AODV as the packet size is increased and average throughput of generating packets is larger in DSR. Results

show that the AODV performed well for medium and large networks. In the same year 2012 Sharma Pradeep Kumar,

Singh Umesh Kumar and Mewada Shivlal conducted a simulation of AODV and DSR on NS-2 simulator based on

network size, pause time and node mobility with the parameters Delay and PDR. Simulation results gave DSR an upper

hand in terms of PDF and throughput as compared to AODV.

A simulation based comparison was done between AODV, DSR and TORA protocols considering Delay, throughput

and PDR using varying number of nodes in NS-2 simulation by Singh Dhananjaya and Som Davesh Singh in 2012 and

they concluded that AODV has advantage over DSR and TORA. In the MANETs where node speed is moderate DSR

worked well. In an evaluation performed in 2012 for AODV and DSR by Odeh Ammar, AbdelFattah Eman and

Alshowkan Muneer using NS-2 simulator with respect to the varying packet size. They concluded that the performance

of DSR was better with respect to the efficiency for a packet size less than 700 bytes. The routing protocols AODV, DSR

and TORA were evaluated by Kakhani Gaurav and Reddy S. Gnanendra in 2012 under the various parameters using NS-

2 simulator and concluded that performance of AODV was best in all respect while DSR was good for the MANETs with

moderate mobility rate.

A comparison of the routing protocols performance was made between AODV, LEACH and TORA on the basis of

Delay, packet loss and PDF by Nath Dr. Rajender and Er. Pragati in the year 2012 using NS-2 simulator and found that

according to PDF the AODV and TORA gives better performance and Delay had increased in case of AODV and TORA.

The number of packet loss in AODV and TORA was more due to overhead. In an another study carried out by

Seethalakshmi V. and Jacob Jaya in the year 2012 for the performance evaluation of DSDV, DSR, TORA and AOMDV

using NS-2 simulator with respect to energy efficiency and they concluded that the AOMDV was the best as compare to

remaining other protocols. Electronics engineers Mhala Nitiket N. And Bobade Nilesh P. performed a simulation based

comparison between AODV and DSR by varying network size up to 50 nodes and taken PDF, Delay, NRL and

throughput as performance metrics using NS-2 as a simulator in the year 2012. After analyzing the simulation result they

conclude that performance of AODV protocol is better with varying network size. In the same year and having the same

performance metrics including the average jitter Mali Baldev Ram and Barwar N.C. were performed simulations on

AODV, DSDV and DSR with the varying number of sources and node density in MANET using the network simulator

NS-2. In investigation they found that AODV routing protocol is a right choice for the MANETs having more traffic load

and high node density.

A lot of simulation studies were carried out in paper [3], [16] to analyze the quantitative properties of routing

protocols. A number of comparative studies/ review papers on various MANET routing protocols have been proposed,

which highlights some of the quantitative analysis or comparison between different types of protocols[1], [7]. Our efforts

are to provide a quantitative comparison of the two most popular MANETs routing protocols DSR [2] & AODV [6]. This

paper is concentrated on the study and performance based comparison of most popular routing protocols AODV & DSR.

Major quantitative measures for the routing protocols are Throughput, End-to-End Delay, Route discovery time, Packet

delivery ratio and Routing overhead. The next section describes the DSR and AODV routing protocols.

III. AD-HOC ON-DEMAND DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTING PROTOCOL (AODV)

It is On-demand, source initiated routing protocol which follows the concept of destination sequence number for

preserving the recent routing information between devices [20]. The route discovery is achieved by broadcasting the

route request packets (RREQ) towards other MANET devices. Routing information is maintained in routing table

dynamically by intermediate devices. This protocol is loop free and minimizes the control overhead. Two numbers i.e.

sequence_num and broadcast_id are maintained by each wireless mobile device. Only the active route wireless devices

exchange “hello” messages. For a route discovery, the source sends RREQ packet to its one hop neighbours, the message


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contains src_addr, src_seq_num, broadcast_id, dst_addr, dst_ seq_num, hop_cnt. If any intermediate device receives a

RREQ for the first time then it keeps track of the src_add, src_broadcast_id, src_seq_num, dst_add, and the address of

the broadcasting device and sets a reverse path to the sender device. When the RREQ reaches the receiver device or any

intermediate device that has a route for the destination with seq_num > = dst_seq_num, a RREP is sent to the sender via

reverse path by carrying src_add, dst_add, dst_seq_num, hop_cnt. If intermediate devices received more RREP packets

carrying the same dst_seq_num but having greater hop_cnt of the first RREP received then those are ignored. A route

error packet (RERR) is broadcasted towards the sender device via propagating each neighbour node whenever a link

break is occurred in currently active route. In this situation the sender device has to discover a new route from the source

to destination by using route discovery activity. The way RREQ and RREP packets are propagating in the network is

shown in an easy way in the figure 2.

Figure 2 AODV Protocol

IV. DYNAMIC SOURCE ROUTING PROTOCOL (DSR)

Figure 3 DSR Protocol

Dynamic Source Routing Protocol is a sender initiated reactive routing protocol designed for the MANETs in which

more than one hops distance between wireless mobile devices. There are two important phases in the DSR protocol.

A. Route Discovery

B. Route Maintenance

A. Route Discovery

If there is no routing information available in the local route cache related to sender mobile device to receiver mobile

device then sender device broadcast a route request packet (RREQ) for route discovery. Otherwise if unexpired routing

information between sender device and receiver device is available in local route cache then that route information is

placed in the data packet by the sender device.

B. Route Maintenance This phase is used to overcome a broken link between the sender device and the receiver device. Route error packets

(RERR) are used to maintain the route and to remove the hop from the route cache of the related nodes.

The complete routing information towards receiver is contained in each data packets. Firstly Route cache is used to

discover the route to receiver that is maintained by each wireless mobile node[20]. Updating of route cache is done


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whenever new route established in the MANET. Sender device is looking for unexpired routing information in the route

cache. If the required information is present then that routing information is placed in the packet header and sends the

data packet to the next hop in the MANET. Else sender device starts route discovery mechanism by broadcasting the

RREQ packet. When sender device received first RREP packet from the receiver device, that route will be updated in the

route cache and that routing information is placed in the packet header. Now sender device sends the data packet to next

hop in the MANET[22]. Intermediate devices accept the RREQ packet and search recently broadcast request generated

by that sender device. If the routing information is present in the request list then that device discard the route discovery

request and send route reply packet (RREP) towards sender device. Else appending the packet by adding it’s id and

broadcast to the neighbour devices and store source id in the list.

IV. SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT

A. Performance Metrics

While evaluating the AODV & DSR routing protocol, we mainly focused on four performance metrics that are End-to-

End Delay, Throughput, Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), and Network Load.

Throughput: The average rate at which the total number of data packets is delivered successfully from one mobile

device to another device over a communication network is known as throughput. The result is found as per bps.

Average End-to-End Delay: This is defined as the average delay in transmission of a packet between two mobile

devices. The higher value of end-to-end delay means that the network is congested and hence the routing protocol does

not perform well. Delays due to route discovery, queuing, propagation and transfer time are included in the delay metric.

Packet Delivery Ratio: This is the ratio of total number of packets successfully received by the receiving nodes to the

number of packets sent by the sender nodes throughout the simulation. It also describes the loss rate that of the packets,

which in turn affects the maximum throughput that the network can support.

Network Load: This is the ratio between the numbers of routing Packets transmitted to the number of packets actually

received. Higher value of network load shows that overhead of routing packets is high. It is the sum of all control packets

sent by all the mobile devices of the MANET to discover and maintain routes [17, 21, 22].

B. Simulation Model

Here we are doing performance based comparison between Ad Hoc On-demand distance vector(AODV) routing

protocol with Dynamic Source routing(DSR) protocol for the MANETs exist in small region with highly dense wireless

mobile devices. For this simulation we use network simulator OPNET version 14.5. OPNET is used for network

simulation for implementing wired and wireless simulation scenarios. OPNET simulator is based on discrete event

simulation i.e. it simulates events such as sending, receiving, forwarding and dropping packets. OPNET simulator

support only AODV, TORA, DSDV, and DSR routing protocols. OPNET is written in C++ programming language and

Object Tool Common Language (OTCL). Simulation models are organized in a hierarchy consisting of three main levels:

the simulation network, node models and process models. The top level refers to the simulation scenario or simulation

network. It defines the network layout, the nodes and the configuration of attributes of the nodes comprising the scenario.

The node models are at the second level in the hierarchy and consist of an organized set of modules describing the

various functions of the node. The modules in the nodes are implemented using process models, the lowest level in the

hierarchy. Process models consist of finite state machines, definitions of model functions, and a process interface that

defines the parameters for interfacing with other process models and configuring attributes. Since The OPNET model

core consists of C++ codes and are complied and executed just like the C++ program hence this enables very detailed

control of the model for the user who is proficient in C++ [24].

C. Simulation Parameters

We consider MANETs consist of wireless mobile devices within a 50m*50m and 100m*100m area. The performance of

AODV & DSR routing protocol are evaluated by keeping the wireless node speed and pause time constant and varying

number of wireless mobile devices. Table 1 shows the simulation parameters used in this evaluation.

TABLE 1

SIMULATION PARAMETERS

Simulator OPNET 14.5 Pause Time 100 sec

Routing Protocols AODV, DSR Device speed 1 m/s

Simulation Area 50m*50m, 100m*100m Data Rate 11 mbps

Simulation Duration 20 min Buffer Size 256000

Number of Devices 10, 20, 30, 40 Update Period Event Driven

D. Simulation Scenarios

For our performance comparison we have taken 16 scenarios named given in the table 2. The 50BY50 and 100BY100 is

the representation of the simulation area. Middle term in the name shows the routing protocol and the last term describe

the number of devices used in that scenario.

TABLE 2

SIMULATION SCENARIOS

1 50BY50_AODV_10 9 100BY100_AODV_10


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2 50BY50_DSR_10 10 100BY100_DSR_10

3 50BY50_AODV_20 11 100BY50_AODV_20

4 50BY50_DSR_20 12 100BY100_DSR_20

5 50BY50_AODV_30 13 100BY100_AODV_30

6 50BY50_DSR_30 14 100BY100_DSR_30

7 50BY50_AODV_40 15 100BY100_AODV_40

8 50BY50_DSR_40 16 100BY100_DSR_40

V. SIMULATION RESULTS & ANALYSIS

A. Throughput

The figure 4 shows the throughput graph for the AODV and DSR routing protocols.

Figure 4 Throughput (bits/sec)

Throughput of the MANET network is much higher in the AODV routing protocol as compare to DSR routing protocol.

The difference increases as number of mobile devices are increasing .

B. Average End to End Delay

The figure 5 shows the end to end delay graph for the AODV and DSR routing protocols.


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Figure 5 Average End to End Delay (sec)

When we compare AODV and DSR routing protocols with respect to average end to end delay, we find out that the

average end to end delay is higher in DSR routing protocol. Delay is much higher in DSR routing protocol for less

number of mobile devices.

C. Packet Delivery Ratio

The figure 6 shows the packet delivery ratio graph for the AODV and DSR routing protocols.


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Figure 6 Traffic sent and Traffic Received (packets/sec)

From the figure 6 we can see that the packet delivery ratio is higher in DSR routing protocol as compare to AODV

routing protocol. As the number of mobile devices is increasing the difference between traffic sent and received is

increased in AODV routing protocol.

D. Network Load


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The figure 7 shows the network load graph for the AODV and DSR routing protocols.

Figure 7 Network Load (bits/sec)

Network load is more in the AODV routing protocol and increases when number of mobile devices increases. On the

other hand in case of DSR routing protocol network load is less in comparison of AODV but increases as number of

mobile devices increases

VI. CONCLUSION

In this paper, an effort has been made to perform an evaluation based comparison between two reactive routing

protocols AODV & DSR. Due to the distinct limitations and virtues of the routing protocols we must choose a protocol

as per the specific application and the environment. The routing protocols: AODV and DSR are evaluated for

performance metrics like packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, throughput and network load with increasing number of


April - 2013, pp. 849-857


mobile devices from 10 to 40 with varying network size 50m*50m and 100m*100m. As a result of this study, we

conclude that AODV have an upper hand on DSR in terms of end-to-end delay and throughput with increasing number of

mobile devices because of its on demand characteristics to find out the freshest routes. But after a certain time end to end

delay is nearly constant. But in the case of packet delivery ratio DSR routing protocol performed exceptionally well.

Network load is high in AODV routing protocol. In overall performance comparison AODV performs well with varying

network size and varying number of mobile devices.

VII. FUTURE WORK

In future research work we can propose a comparison between other reactive routing protocols. We can also consider the

Quality of Service parameters for those comparisons. We can also propose improved version of existing routing

protocols considering various performance measures.

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A Performance Based Comparison between AODV & DSR Routing ... · classification of MANET routing protocols into three broad classes Proactive, Reactive and Hybrid. We can measure