Performance analysis of OLSR protocol in a Mobile Ad hoc wireless Network

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) are self configuring and self healing networks that do not require any existing infrastructure. As the nodes constituting the network are mobile, the network topology can be very dynamic. Hence, special routing protocols are designed to cater to the dynamic nature of MANETs. Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) is once such protocol that has proven to be a potent routing protocol for establishing contemporary MANETs. This paper presents the performance analysis of the OLSR protocol in an actual MANET that has been established using multiple wireless routers. One of the key contributions of this paper is establishing the communication efficiency of the OLSR protocol in an actual multi-hop wireless test-bed. With the help of comprehensive experiments, we determine the effectiveness of the OLSR protocol and present results related to goodput, latency, end-to-end packet loss and jitter. Our results indicate that the communication efficiency of the OLSR protocol is maximum at a distance of one wireless hop; it degrades with each additional hop; and then becomes significantly consistent after three wireless hops.