Simulation Study Based On OPNET For Routing Of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

The wireless Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a special wireless mobile communication network, where all mobile terminals are equal and self-organized, pre-deploy infrastructures or centralized administrations are unnecessary, the topology is dynamically changing, the bandwidth and energy are also limited, and so on. The research on the MANET, in particular, the research on its MAC and routing protocols, has been immensely challenging. Generally, network simulation is one basic means to spread the research on the network technologies.This thesis, at the very beginning, introduces the origin, characteristics, applications and current situation of the MANET. Then, by comparing the OSI (Open System Interconnect Reference Model) with TCP/IP Architecture, this thesis analyzes the network layer techniques and protocols adopted in MANET. Compared and analyzed with some other currently popular network simulators, OPNET based on the graphical interface is chosen by this thesis as a simulation tool, and given the realization of modules which is based on the platform of DSR and AODV routing mechanism. We compare the performance of two prominent on-demand routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks-Dynamic Source Routing(DSR) and Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing(AODV).We demonstrate that even though DSR and AODV share a similar on-demand behavior, the differences in the protocol mechanics can lead to significant performance differentials. We can research from the average end-to-end delay, packet delivery fraction, routing load and throughput. The performance differentials are analyzed under different network load and network size. This model is given two options, 50 and 100 random distribution of mobile nodes, each node in the network is medium-speed, and each option that 15, 25, 35 nodes were set up traffic communications. The simulation results show that: the metrics such as the average delay, packet delivery fraction and throughput, AODV outperforms DSR protocol; and the metrics such as routing load, DSR outperforms AODV protocol.