Scalability of MANET Routing Protocols for Heterogeneous and Homogenous Networks

In Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET), mobility, traffic and node density are main network conditions that significantly affect performance of routing protocols. Much of the previous research in MANET routing have focused on developing strategies, which suit one specific networking scenario. Therefore, there is no existing protocol that can work well in all different networking scenarios. This paper reviews characteristics of several different classes of routing protocols. Moreover, most of current routing protocols assume homogeneous networking conditions where all nodes have the same capabilities and resources. This paper presents extensive studies simulations for DSR, AODV, LAR1, FSR and WRP in homogenous and heterogeneous networks that consist of different nodes with different resources. The results showed that while all protocols perform reasonably well in homogenous networking conditions, their performance suffer significantly over heterogonous networks.