Designing an enhanced ZRP algorithm for MANET and simulation using OPNET

A MANET or Mobile Ad-Hoc Network is decentralized in nature and it is basically a collection of heterogeneous mobile nodes which are autonomous and can communicate among themselves over the wireless link. In this infrastructure-less network, all the nodes dynamically route the packets by themselves with help of some protocols for sending or receiving the packet information. The ZRP or Zone Routing Protocol for MANET is a hybrid kind of routing protocol which uses the advantages of both proactive and reactive route discovery mechanisms while communicating locally within a cluster or communicating to a different cluster respectively. In our work we have modified the ZRP in three different approaches. We have extensively simulated and compared the performance of traditional ZRP and our Modified ZRP which coined as EZRP using OPNET network simulator. The results indicate that Modified methods perform better than the traditional.