The Impact of Transmission Power on the Performance of MANET Routing Protocols

A Mobile Ad hoc Network is an infrastructure-less multi-hop wireless network. A node communicates directly with other mobile nodes within the wireless range and indirectly with nodes that are not within the wireless range of each other. Transmission power of the nodes plays an important role here. In a multi hop communication scenario, it is possible to minimize the total energy for reaching a higher distance by repeated low power transmissions. The objective of this work is to study the behavior and performance of the three frequently used MANET routing protocols with respect to different transmission power of individual nodes of the network. We have selected Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV) Routing Protocol, Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing Protocol and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) Protocol for this study. We analyzed the positive and negative impact of increase in transmission power of individual nodes on the performance of these routing protocols. The arrived results are more significant and can be used in the design of new power aware routing protocols.