Simulation-based performance evaluation of AODV routing protocol for ad hoc mobile wireless networks

An ad hoc wireless network is a network composed of mobile communication devices, which is designed to provide communication capability to satisfy the need of a temporary nature in an infrastructure-less environment. A routing protocol is necessary in ad hoc networks to ensure effective communication among nodes. This thesis presents a simulation-based study on the performance evaluation of Ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol, which is one of the core routing protocols being promoted by the Mobile Ad Hoc Networking (MANET) group of the Internet Engineering Task Force. An event-advanced simulation program was developed in C++ to simulate the ad hoc wireless network implementing the AODV protocol. The performance metrics evaluated were throughput, average delay, route acquisition time and routing overhead. The network traffic was monitored in terms of the data packets created and successfully delivered within the simulation time. A discussion on the effect of different network parameters such as the mobility of the nodes, the number of nodes in the network, the size of the network and the data packet size on the performance characteristics of AODV protocol is also presented.