Simulation and performance evaluation of AODV, DSDV and DSR in TCP and UDP environment

An ad hoc network is a collection of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary network without the use of any existing network infrastructure or centralized administration. A number of routing protocols such as Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Ad Hoc on-Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) and Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector (DSDV) have been implemented. In this paper, an attempt has been made to compare the performance of two prominent on-demand reactive routing protocols: DSR and AODV, and proactive DSDV protocol in TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) environments. A simulation model with Media Access Control (MAC) is used to study interlayer interactions and their performance implications. These include the measurement of network throughput using TCP and UDP as well as the delay in transmission of packets using TCP. Correlation between the two sets of results is found to be satisfactory enough to validate the simulation process. Given this validation, based on similar simulation techniques, the investigation of a larger scale Ad-hoc network is then carried out. These simulations are carried out using NS-2 simulator. The results presented in this work illustrate the importance in carefully evaluating and implementing routing protocols in an ad hoc environment.