Unicast performance analysis of extended ODMRP in a wired-to-wireless ad-hoc network testbed

The on-demand multicast routing protocol (ODMRP) is an effective and efficient routing protocol designed for mobile wireless ad-hoc networks. One of the major strengths of ODMRP is its capability to operate both as a unicast and a multicast routing protocol. This versatility of ODMRP can increase network efficiency as the network can handle both unicast and multicast traffic with one protocol. We have extended ODMRP to provide the Internet connectivity to the ad-hoc network. We describe the unicast functionality and mobility-handling feature of extended ODMRP and analyze the protocol performance in a real wired-to-wireless ad-hoc network testbed at an indoor environment. We generate various topological scenarios in our heterogeneous testbed by applying mobility to the wireless network hosts and study their impacts on our protocol performance. A static routing scheme has been used at the router level to allow wired nodes to access the ad-hoc nodes. The possible impact of using various mobility-handling schemes at the router level for ad-hoc node access has been discussed. We believe that the performance study in a testbed network can help us analyze the protocol in a realistic way and point us to the future research direction.