Multi-path Routing Protocols in Wireless Mobile Ad Hoc Networks: A Quantitative Comparison

Multi-path routing represents a promising routing method for wireless mobile ad hoc networks. Multi-path routing achieves load balancing and is more resilient to route failures. Recently, numerous multi-path routing protocols have been proposed for wireless mobile ad hoc networks. Performance evaluations of these protocols showed that they achieve lower routing overhead, lower end-to-end delay and alleviate congestion in comparison with single path routing protocols. However, a quantitative comparison of multi-path routing protocols has not yet been conducted. In this work, we present the results of a detailed simulation study of three multi-path routing protocols (SMR, AOMDV and AODV Multipath) obtained with the ns-2 simulator. The simulation study shows that the AOMDV protocol achieves best performance in high mobility scenarios, while AODV Multipath performs better in scenarios with low mobility and higher node density. SMR performs best in networks with low node density, however as density increases, the protocol’s performance is degrading.