Performance Analysis of various routing strategies in Mobile Ad hoc Network using QualNet simulator

The defining characteristic of MANET such as dynamically changing network topology, resource-poor devices and multi-hop nature makes the data transmission very computational. Keeping in view such constraints and complexities, a number of routing protocols have been developed. In this paper, three routing protocols AODV (Ad hoc On demand distance vector), OLSR (Optimized link state routing) and ZRP (Zone routing protocol) are analyzed and compared by using proposed technologies (QualNet simulator) on the basis of performance metrics such as PDR (packet delivery ratio), end-to-end delay and throughput. To test their efficiency under different network scenarios and provide a qualitative assessment of the applicability of the protocols. Simultaneously, evaluation is done by varying network size and traffic load for two different levels of node density and the results are examined and analyzed at different scenarios.