Proceedings of the UGC Sponsored National Conference on Advanced Networking and Applications,

27th March 2015

An Overview of MANET Routing Protocols

Anto Ramya. S. I
Department of Computer Science, St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science for Women, Hosur-635126
[email protected]

-------------------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT----------------------------------------------------
Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a continuously self – configuring, infrastructure – less network of mobile
devices connected without wires. Ad Hoc is a Latin word and it means “for this purpose”. Mobile ad hoc networking
is a means of communication which does not rely on any existing infrastructure such as dedicated routers,
transceiver base stations or even cables. MANETs have been a challenging subject for research scientists and
internet pioneers. A MANET is a type of ad hoc network that can change locations and configure itself on the fly.
Because MANETs are mobile nodes, they use wireless connections to connect to various networks. This can be a
standard Wi-Fi connection or another medium, such as cellular or satellite transmission. Some MANETs are
restricted to a local area of wireless devices, while others may be connected to the internet. MANETs are not very
secure because of its dynamic nature. This paper concentrates on routing techniques which is the most challenging
issue due to the dynamic nature of ad hoc networks. There are different routing protocols proposed for MANET,
which make it quite difficult to determine the suitable protocol for different network conditions. This paper provides
an overview of different routing protocols proposed.

Keywords - Ad hoc network, MANET, routing protocol, satellite transmission, wireless connection.
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MANET consists of peer – to – peer, self – forming, self –
1.INTRODUCTION healing network in contrast to a mesh network that has a
central controller.

A Mobile ad hoc network is an autonomous system of MANETs are a kind of wireless ad hoc network that usually
mobile routers connected by wireless links. The routers are has a routable networking environment on the top of the
free to move randomly and organize themselves arbitrarily, link layer. Figure 1 shows the MANET routing to its
thus, the network’s wireless topology may change rapidly destination.
and unpredictably. Such a network may operate in a stand –
alone fashion or may be connected to the larger internet. 2.CHARACTERISTICS OF MANET

Each device in a MANET is free to move independently in  In MANET, each node has an autonomous
any direction, and will therefore change its links to other behaviour (i.e) they act as both host and router.
devices frequently. Each device must forward traffic  Multi-hop radio relaying – MANETs are capable
unrelated to its own use, and therefore be a router. The of multi-hop routing when the source node and
primary challenge in building a MANET is equipping each destination node are out of radio range for a
device to continuously maintain the information required to message.
properly route traffic. Such networks may operate by  Centralized firewall is not present because of its
themselves or may be connected to internet. They may distributed nature of operation.
contain one or multiple and different transceivers between  The nodes can join or leave the network anytime,
nodes. This results in a highly dynamic, autonomous making the network topology dynamic in nature.
topology.  Mobile nodes are characterized with less memory,
power and light weight features.
 The reliability, efficiency, stability and capacity of
wireless links are often inferior when compared
with wired links. This shows the fluctuating
bandwidth of wireless links.
 The spontaneous behaviour of the nodes, demand
minimum human intervention to configure the
network.
 All nodes have identical features with similar
responsibilities and capabilities and hence it forms
a completely symmetric environment.
 High user density and large level of user mobility.
 Nodal connectivity is intermittent.
Fig 1: MANET routing to destination

3.MANET ROUTING PROTOCOLS

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 Proceedings of the UGC Sponsored National Conference on Advanced Networking and Applications,
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Routing protocols define a set of rules which govern the

journey of message packets from source to destination in a
network. There are different types of routing protocols in
MANET, which are applied according to the network
circumstances. Figure 2 shows the classification of routing
protocols in MANET.

Ad hoc Routing Protocols

Table Driven/ Proactive On Demand-Driven/ Reactive Hybrid

Fig 3: Dynamic distance Sequenced Distance Vector
Routing Protocol
DSDV DSR
OLSR AODV
WRP ABR
ZRP DSDV protocol requires each mobile node in the network to
SHARP
CGSR SSA advertise its own routing table to its current neighbours. The
TORA
advertisement is done either by broadcasting or by
multicasting. By the advertisements, the neighbouring nodes
can know about the changes in the network by the
movement of nodes. The routing updates could be sent in
two ways: full dump and incremental. In the case of full
dump, the entire routing table is sent to the neighbours,
Fig 2: Classification of routing protocols in MANET
whereas in case of incremental update, only the entries that
3.1 Proactive Routing Protocols/ Table Driven require changes are sent.
Protocols:
3.1.2 Optimized Link State Routing
In proactive routing, every node maintains routing Protocol(OLSR)
information to every other node in the network. The routing
information is usually kept in a number of different tables.
These tables are periodically updated. The difference
between these protocols exists in the way the routing
information is updated, detected and the type of information
kept at each routing table. Proactive protocols are not
suitable for large networks as they need to maintain node
entries for each and every node in the routing table of every
node. These protocols maintain different number of routing
tables varying from protocol to protocol. There are various
well known proactive routing protocols, example: DSDV,
OLSR, WRP, etc.

3.1.1 Dynamic Destination – Sequenced Distance –

Vector Routing Protocol (DSDV)

DSDV is developed based on Bellman-Ford routing

algorithm with some modifications. Each mobile node in the
network keeps a routing table in this protocol. Each of the
routing table contains the list of all available destinations Fig 4: OLSR Multi Point Relay
and the number of hops to each other. Each table entry is
tagged with a sequence number, which is originated by the OLSR is a proactive link state routing protocol that uses
destination node. Periodic transmissions of updates of the hello and Topology Control (TC) messages to discover and
routing tables help maintaining the topology information of then disseminate link state information throughout the
the network. If there is any new significant change for the mobile ad hoc network. Individual nodes utilise this
routing information, the updates are transmitted topology information to work out next hop destinations for
immediately, so that the routing information updates might all nodes in the network using the shortest hop forwarding
either be periodic or event driven. paths. Being a proactive protocol, routes to all destinations
within the network are known and maintained before using

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it. Having the routes available within the standard routing clusters, this protocol achieves a distributed processing
table can be useful for some systems and network mechanism in the network. The drawback of this protocol is
applications as there is no route discovery delay associated the frequent change or selection of cluster heads might be
with finding a new route. Being a link state protocol, OLSR resource hungry and it might affect the routing performance.
requires reasonably large amount of bandwidth and CPU CGSR uses DSDV protocol as the underlying routing
power to compute optimal paths inside the network. scheme and hence has the same overhead as DSDV.
However, it modifies DSDV by using a hierarchical cluster-
OLSR uses two kinds of control messages: Hello and head-to-gateway routing approach to route traffic from
Topology control (TC). Hello messages are used for finding source to destination. Gateway nodes are nodes within the
the information about the link status and the host’s communication range of two or more cluster heads. A
neighbours. OLSR makes use of “Hello” messages to find packet sent by a node is first sent to its cluster head and then
its one hop neighbours and its two hop neighbours through the packet is sent from the cluster head to a gateway to
their resources. The Multi Point Relay (MPR) selector set is another cluster head and so on until the cluster head of the
constructed by the Hello message, which describes the destination node is reached. The packet is then transmitted
neighbours having preferred this host to work as MPR and to the destination from its own cluster head.
as of this information the host be able to evaluate its
individual rest of the MPRs. The Hello messages are sent
3.2 Reactive Routing Protocols/ Demand Routing
simply single hop away, but the TC messages are
Protocol
broadcasted throughout the whole network. TC messages
are used for distributing information about personal
advertised neighbours, which includes atleast the MPR In reactive routing protocol, route is discovered whenever it
selector list. The TC messages will be broadcasted is needed. Nodes initiate the route discovery on demand
occasionally and only the MPR hosts can forward the TC basis. Source node sees its route cache for the available
messages. Figure 4 shows an example of OLSR multi point route from source to destination, if the route is not available
relay. then it initiates the route discovery process. The on-demand
routing protocols have two major components:
3.1.3 Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP)  Route Discovery: In this phase, the source node
initiates the route discovery on demand basis.
WRP belongs to a general class of shortest path calculating Source nodes consults its route cache for the
algorithms, that calculate the shortest path using available route from source to destination,
information regarding the length and second – to – last hop otherwise if the route is not present it initiates route
of the shortest path to each destination. WRP minimises the discovery. The source node in the packet includes
number of cases where a temporary routing loop can occur. the destination address of the node as well as the
Each node requires four things for the purpose of routing: address of the intermediate nodes to the
 A distance table. destination.
 A routing table.  Route Maintenance: Due to dynamic topology of
 A link – cost table. the network cases of the route failure between the
 A Message Retransmission List (MRL). nodes arises due to link breakage etc, so route
maintenance is done.
WRP uses periodic update message transmissions to the
neighbours of a node. The nodes in the response list should Reactive protocols have acknowledgement mechanism due
send acknowledgements. If there is no change from the last to which route maintenance is possible. Reactive protocols
update, the nodes send an idle Hello message in the add latency to the network due to the route discovery
response list to ensure connectivity. A node can decide mechanism. Each intermediate node involved in the route
whether to update its routing table after receiving an update discovery process adds latency. These protocols decrease
message from a neighbour and always it looks for a better the routing overhead, but at the cost of increased latency in
path using the new information. If a node gets a better path, the network. Hence, these protocols are suitable in the
it relays back that information to the original nodes so that situations where low routing overhead is required. There are
they can update their tables. After receiving the various well known reactive routing protocols present in
acknowledgement, the original node updates its MRL. Thus, MANET. For example: DSR, AODV, TORA and LMR.
each time the consistency of the routing information is
checked by each node in this protocol, which helps to 3.2.1 Dynamic Source Routing Protocol(DSR)
eliminate routing loops and to find out the best solution for
routing in the network. Dynamic source routing (DSR) is based on the source route
approach. In DSR, shown in Figure 5, the protocol is based
3.1.4 Cluster Gateway Switch Routing Protocol on the link state algorithm, in which the source initiates
(CGSR) route discovery on demand basis. The sender determines the
route from source to destination and it includes the address
CGSR considers a clustered mobile wireless network of intermediate nodes to the route record in the packet. DSR
instead of a flat network. For structuring the network into was designed for multi hop networks for small diameters. It
separate but interrelated groups, cluster heads are elected is a beaconless protocol in which no HELLO messages are
using cluster head selection algorithm. By forming several exchanged between nodes to notify them of their neighbours
in the network.
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ABR protocol defines a new type of routing metric called

“degree of association stability” for mobile ad hoc
networks. In this routing protocol, a route is selected based
on the degree of association stability of mobile nodes. Each
node periodically generates beacon to announce its
existence. Upon receiving the beacon message, a neighbour
node updates its own associativity table. For each beacon
received, the associativity tick of the receiving node with
the beaconing node is increased. A high value of
associativity tick for any particular beaconing node means
that the node is relatively static. Associativity tick is reset
when any neighbouring node moves out of the
neighbourhood of any other node. Figure 7 shows an
example of ABR
Fig 5: Dynamic Source Routing Protocol

3.2.2 Ad Hoc on- Demand Distance Vector

Routing Protocol (AODV)

AODV is an enhancement of DSDV. But, AODV is a

reactive routing protocol instead of proactive. By creating
routes based on demand, it minimizes the number of
broadcasts, which is not the case for DSDV. When any
source node wants to send a packet to a destination, it
broadcasts a route request (RREQ) packet. The
neighbouring nodes in turn broadcast the packet to their
neighbours and the process continues until the packet
reaches the destination. During the process of forwarding
the route request, intermediate nodes record the address of
the neighbour from which the first copy of the broadcast
packet is received. This record is stored in their route tables,
Fig 7: Associativity Based Routing Protocol
which helps for establishing a reverse path. If additional
copies of the same RREQ are received later, those packets
3.2.4 Signal Stability-Based Adaptive Routing
are discarded. The reply is sent using the reverse path.
Protocol (SSA)
When a source node moves, it can reinitiate a route SSA protocol focuses on obtaining the most stable routes
discovery process for route maintenance. If any through an ad hoc network. The protocol performs on
intermediate node moves within a particular route, the demand route discovery based on signal strength and
neighbour of the drifted node can detect the link failure and location stability. Weak and strong channels in the network
sends a link failure notification to its upstream neighbour. are detected based on the signal strength. SSA can be
This process continues until the failure notification reaches divided into two cooperative protocols: the dynamic
the source node. Based on the received information, the Routing Protocol (DRP) and the Static Routing Protocol
source might decide to re-initiate the route discovery phase. (SRP). DRP uses two tables: Signal Stability Table (SST)
Figure 6 shows an example of AODV protocol. and Routing Table (RT). SST stores the signal strengths of
the neighbouring nodes obtained by periodic beacons from
the link layer of each neighbouring node. These signal
strengths are recorded as weak or strong. DRP receives all
the transmissions and, after processing, it passes those to the
SRP.

SRP passes the packet to the node’s upper layer stack if it is

the destination; otherwise, it looks for the destination in
routing table and forwards the packet. If there is no entry in
the routing table for that destination, it initiates the route-
finding process. Route-request packets are forwarded to the
neighbours using the strong channels. The destination, after
getting the request, chooses the first arriving request packet
Fig 6: Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector Routing and sends back the reply. The DRP reverses the selected
Protocol route and sends a route-reply message back to the initiator
of route request. The DRPs of the nodes along the path
3.2.3 Associativity-Based Routing Protocol (ABR) update their routing tables accordingly. In case of a link
failure, the intermediate nodes send an error message to the

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source indicating which channel has failed. The source in covered routing zones. A covered node is a node which
turn sends an erase message to inform all nodes about the belongs to the routing zone of a node that has received a
broken link and initiates a new route-search process to find route query. During the forwarding of the query packet, a
a new path to the destination. node identifies whether it is coming from its neighbour or
not. If yes, then it marks all of its known neighbouring
3.2.5 Temporarily Ordered Routing Algorithm nodes in its same zone as covered. The query is thus relayed
Protocol (TORA) till it reaches the destination. The destination in turn sends
back a reply message via the reverse path and creates the
TORA is a reactive routing protocol with some proactive route. Figure 8 shows an example of ZRP.
enhancements where a link between nodes is established
creating a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of the route from
the source node to the destination. This protocol uses a link
reversal model in route discovery. A route discovery query
is broadcasted and propagated throughout the network until
it reaches the destination or a node that has information
about how to reach the destination. TORA defines a
parameter, termed height. Height is a measure of the
distance from the responding node to the required
destination node. In the route discovery phase, this
parameter is returned to the querying node.
As the query response propagates back, each intermediate
node updates its TORA table with the route and height to
the destination node. The source node then uses the height
to select the best route toward the destination. This protocol
has an interesting property that it frequently chooses the
most convenient route, rather than the shortest route. For all
these attempts, TORA tries to minimize the routing
management traffic overhead. Fig 8: Zone Routing Protocol

3.3 Hybrid Routing Protocol 3.3.2 Sharp Hybrid Adaptive Routing Protocol
There is a trade-off between proactive and reactive (SHARP)
protocols. Proactive protocols have large overhead and less
latency while reactive protocols have less overhead and SHARP adapts between reactive and proactive routing by
more latency. So a Hybrid protocol is presented to dynamically varying the amount of routing information
overcome the shortcomings of both proactive and reactive shared proactively. This protocol defines proactive zones
routing protocols. Hybrid routing protocol is combination of around some nodes. The number of nodes in a particular
both proactive and reactive routing protocol. It uses the proactive zone is determined by the node-specific zone
route discovery mechanism of reactive protocol and the radius. All nodes within the zone radius of a particular node
table maintenance mechanism of proactive protocol so as to become members of that particular proactive zone for that
avoid latency and overhead problems in the network. node. If for a given destination, a node is not present within
Hybrid protocol is suitable for large networks where large a proactive zone, reactive routing mechanism is used to
numbers of nodes are present. This large network is divided establish the route to that node. Proactive routing
into set of zones, where routing inside the zone is performed mechanism is used within the proactive zone. Nodes within
by using proactive approach and outside the zone routing is the proactive zone maintain routes proactively only with
done using reactive approach. There are various popular respect to the central node. In this protocol, proactive zones
hybrid routing protocols for MANET like ZRP, SHARP. are created automatically for frequently addressed
destinations sought within the network. The proactive zones
3.3.1 Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) act as collectors of packets, which forward the packets
efficiently to the destination, once the packets reach any
ZRP is suitable for wide variety of MANETs, especially for node at the zone vicinity.
the networks with large span and diverse mobility patterns.
In this protocol, each node proactively maintains routes 4.CHALLENGES FOR MANET
within a local region, which is termed as routing zone.
Route creation is done using a query-reply mechanism. For A MANET environment has to overcome certain issues of
creating different zones in the network, a node first has to inefficiency. It includes:
know who its neighbours are. A neighbour is defined as a  The wireless link characteristics are time-varying
node with whom direct communication can be established, in nature - There are transmission impediments like
and that is within one hop transmission range of a node. fading, path loss, blockage and interference that
Neighbour discovery information is used as a basis for add to the susceptible behaviour of wireless
Intra-Zone Routing Protocol (IARP). channels. The reliability of wireless transmission is
Rather than blind broadcasting, ZRP uses a query control resisted by different factors.
mechanism to reduce route query traffic by directing query  Limited range of wireless transmission – The
messages outward from the query source and away from limited radio band results in reduced data rates

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 Proceedings of the UGC Sponsored National Conference on Advanced Networking and Applications,
27th March 2015

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5.CONCLUSION

A great development in the field of wireless networks

(infrastructure based) and in the field of Mobile ad hoc
network (infrastructure less network) can be seen. In this
paper a number of routing protocols for MANET, which are
broadly categorized as proactive and reactive and Hybrid
protocols are discussed. There are various shortcomings in
different routing protocols and it is difficult in choosing
routing protocol for different situations as there is trade-off
between various protocols. There are various challenges that
have to be met, so these networks are going to have
extensive use in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I am glad to thank THE LORD ALMIGHTY for
giving me the fortitude in finishing this paper. I would like
to thank my family for the constant support they provided
throughout my preparation. I express my sincere gratitude to
Mrs. Dhina Suresh, HOD, Department of Computer
Science, St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science for
Women, Hosur for her continuous guidance, support and
encouragement in all my endeavors.

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