A Comparative Study of B.A.T.M.A.N. and OLSR Routing Protocols for MANETs

Mobile ad Hoc networks are capable of making dynamic changes in any topology. The characteristic which differentiates MANETs from other networks is that it is capable of changing its location. The results of the surveys over the last 5 years have shown that it can overcome congestion and communication barrier between two nodes. This study compares the performance of two different multi hop ad hoc network routing protocols, Better Approach to Mobile Ad hoc Networks and Optimized Link State Routing Algorithm. These protocols have been devised to maximize packet delivery ratio, throughput and to minimize end to end delay, routing load to improve the performance. This paper studies link state, distance vector and biologically inspired approaches to routing using OLSR and BATMAN routing protocols as discussed in various papers. The paper concludes by showing that BATMAN outperforms OLSR in terms of better throughput, less delay, lower CPU load and lower routing overhead when experimental evaluation is considered. But, when other approaches are considered, they are found to be similar in their performances. Keywords— Routing Protocol, MANET, B.A.T.M.A.N., OLSR, Reactive, Proactive