Evaluation of Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol in HetMAN Architecture

Problem statement: Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET), a type of network with special characteristics, needs a special mechanism to bear with its ad hoc behavior. Approach: The important issue in MANET is routing protocol. Routing protocol is a standard used to determine the route path taken during the transmission of data. Results: In this study we focused on the Ad hoc On demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol for MANET. Simulation experiments were carried out using the OMNeT++ network simulator to study AODV performance in a HetMAN architecture, which models heterogeneous MANET that is MANET integrated with Internet through fixed and wireless networks. The four types of network in HetMAN architecture are MANET, wireless LAN, wired LAN and cellular network. The simulation results were analyzed using several metrics assigned to measure the routing protocol performance. Conclusion/Recommendations: We described three scenarios for HetMAN architecture. This study covered scenario I (communication entirely within MANET; Homogeneous MANET) and scenario II (communication between MANET and wireless LAN; Heterogeneous MANET). Analyzing the simulation results for these two scenarios, we compared the performance of AODV in homogeneous MANET and heterogeneous MANET. Throughput value for scenario I was found to be 16% higher than for scenario II, while packet delivery ratio in scenario I is between 26.5-36.6% higher than that for scenario II. Analysis showed that implementation of AODV performed better in homogeneous MANET than in heterogeneous MANET.