Ad-hoc Networks Energy Consumption: A review of the Ad-Hoc Routing Protocols

In MANETs (Mobile Ad Hoc Networks) communication at the mobile nodes can be achieved by using multihop wireless links. The architecture of such network is based not on a centralized base station but on each node which acts as a router and forwards data packets to other nodes in the network. The aim of each protocol, in an ad-hoc network, is to find valid routes between two communicating nodes. These protocols must be able to handle high mobility of the nodes which often cause changes in the network topology. This paper evaluates four ad-hoc network protocols (AODV, DSDV, DSR and TORA) in different network scales taking into consideration the mobility factor. The evaluation of these four protocols was carried out using Network Simulator-2 (ns2), and the poor performance of TORA may be attributed to its implementation in this package. Therefore further investigation of TORA implementation in ns2 needs to be carried out.