Proactive or Reactive Routing: A Unified Analytical Framework in MANETs

We present a mathematical framework for the performance evaluation of proactive and reactive routing protocols operating in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The model captures the functionality of the routing protocols together with the characterization of the performance of the medium access control protocol (MAC). It reveals the interplay between the protocol functionality and network parameters, and provides new insight on the relative benefits of proactive and on-demand routing in MANETS. The analytical results are corroborated with results obtained using discrete-event simulations.