UNIT 3

ROUTING PROTOCOLS
FOR ADHOC WIRELESS
NETWORKS
CONTENT(BASED On Syllabus)
Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks
Classifications of Routing Protocols
DSDV
 DSR
 AODV
 ZRP
 Differences between Table-driven and On-demand routing protocols.
Issues in Designing Routing Protocols for
Mobility
Bandwidth Constraint
Error-Prone Shared Broadcast Radio Channel
Hidden and Exposed Terminal Problems
Resource Constraint
Characteristics of a IDEAL Routing Protocol
 Fully Distributed
Adaptive to Topology Changes
Minimum Connection Setup Time
Localized
Loop free and Stale Free
Minimum Packet Collisions
Optimal use of Resources
Quick Convergence to Optimal Routes after Network Changes
Node Should not update remote location changes
Provide Required QoS
Classification Of Routing Protocols
The routing protocols for ad hoc wireless networks can be broadly
classified into four categories based on:

Routing information update mechanism

 Use of temporal information for routing
 Routing topology
 Utilization of specific resources
Based On Routing Update Mechanism
Ad hoc wireless network routing protocols can be classified into three major categories based
on the routing information update mechanism. They are

• Proactive or table-driven routing protocols: In table-driven routing protocols, every node

maintains the network topology information in the form of routing tables by periodically
exchanging routing information.
• Reactive or on-demand routing protocols: Protocols that fall under this category do not
maintain the network topology information. They obtain the necessary path when it is
required, by using a connection establishment process. Hence these protocols do not
exchange routing information periodically

• Hybrid : Combination of both

Based on the Use of Temporal
Information for Routing
These protocols utilize timing information for routing. It is important in ADHOC networks
where paths often break and network keeps changing. The protocols that fall under this
category can be further classified into two types:

 Routing protocols using past temporal information:

These routing protocols use information about the past status of the links or the status of links
at the time of routing to make routing decisions.

Routing protocols that use future temporal information:

Protocols belonging to this category use information about the expected future status of the
wireless links to make approximate routing decisions. Apart from the lifetime of wireless
links, the future status information also includes information regarding the lifetime of the node
Based on the Routing Topology
• Routing topology being used in the Internet is hierarchical in order to reduce the state
information maintained at the core routers. Ad hoc wireless networks, due to their relatively
smaller number of nodes, can make use of either a flat topology or a hierarchical topology
for routing.
Flat topology routing protocols: Protocols that fall under this category make use of a flat
addressing scheme. It assumes the presence of a globally unique (or at least unique to the
connected part of the network) addressing mechanism for nodes in an ad hoc wireless
network.
Hierarchical topology routing protocols: Protocols belonging to this category make use of
a logical hierarchy in the network and an associated addressing scheme. The hierarchy could
be based on geographical information or it could be based on hop distance.
Based on the Utilization of Specific
Resources
Power-aware routing: This category of routing protocols aims at minimizing the
consumption of a very important resource in the ad hoc wireless networks: the
battery power. The routing decisions are based on minimizing the power
consumption either locally or globally in the network.

Geographical information assisted routing: Protocols belonging to this category

improve the performance of routing and reduce the control overhead by effectively
utilizing the geographical information available.
DSDV:- Destination Sequenced Distance-Vector
Routing Protocol
It is a proactive, table driven routing protocol
Each node maintains a table that contains the shortest distance and the first node
on the shortest path to every other node in the network.
It incorporates table updates with increasing sequence number tags to prevent
loops, to counter the count-to-infinity problem, and for faster convergence.
Routes to all destinations are readily available at every node at all times.
The tables are exchanged between neighbors at regular intervals to keep an up-
to-date view of the network topology.
The tables are also forwarded if a node observes a significant change in local
topology.
Working of DSDV protocol
When a link to a node is broken, it
is updated by its nearest neighbour
with a weight infinity.

Each node, upon receiving an

update with weight ∞, quickly
disseminates it to its neighbours in
order to propagate the broken-link
information to the whole network.

A node always assigns an odd

sequence number to the link break
update to differentiate it from the
even sequence number generated
by the destination
The table updates are of two types: incremental updates and full dumps.
Incremental Updates happen when there are no major changes in the networks,
and only few entries in the table need update
Full Dumps are carried out when there are major network changes. During full
dumps the complete table information is sent.
These updates can be done based on an event or periodically.
Sequence numbers are used to provide topology information and they also
keep the routing loop free
Sequence numbers are even for normal links and odd for broken links.
DSDV consumes a lot of energy but the latency of the network is very less
DSDV also suffers from excessive control overhead, especially for highly
mobile networks
DSR- Dynamic Source Routing Protocol
Reactive Routing Protocol. It is On-Demand Routing Protocol. There is no
table maintained.
The basic approach of this protocol (and all other on-demand routing
protocols) during the route construction phase is to establish a route by
flooding Route Request packets in the network.
The destination node, on receiving a Route Request packet, responds by
sending a Route Reply packet back to the source, which carries the route
traversed by the Route Request packet receive.
Routing in DSR is done in two phases :-
1) Route Discovery 2) Route Maintenance
If a node has to send data, it sends a route
request packet, which floods the networks

Each Node on receiving the request packet,

forwards it, to its own neighbors

Each RouteRequest carries a sequence

number generated by the source node and
the path it has traversed.

The packet is forwarded only if it is not a

duplicate RouteRequest.

The sequence number on the packet is used

to prevent loop formations and to avoid
multiple transmissions of the same

A destination node, after receiving the first

RouteRequestpacket, replies to thesource
node through the reverse path the
RouteRequest packet had traversed.
When an intermediate node in the path moves
away, causing a wireless link to
break, for example, the link between nodes 12
and 15 in Figure 7.11,

ARouteError message is generated from the

node adjacent to the broken link to
inform the source node.

The source node reinitiates the route

establishment procedure. The cached entries at
the intermediate nodes and the source node are
removed when aRoute Error packet is
received.

If a link breaks due to themovement of edge

nodes (nodes 1 and 15), the source node again
initiates theroute discovery process
Route Optimization Techniques in DSR
• DSR uses the route cache at intermediate nodes. This cache information is
used by the intermediate nodes to reply to the source when they receive a
Route Request packet and if they have a route to the corresponding
destination.
• By operating in the promiscuous mode, an intermediate node learns about
route breaks
•An exponential backoff algorithm is used to avoid frequent RouteRequest
flooding in the network when the destination is in another disjoint set.

•DSR also allows piggy-backing of a data packet on theRouteRequest so that a

data packet can be sent along with the Route Request
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
- Eliminates the need to periodically update the routing information
- Control overhead reduced due to route cache information
 Disadvantages
- No mechanism to repair broken links locally
- Stale route cache information can effect route reconstruction phase
negatively
- Connection set-up delay is higher than table driven algorithms.
- Performance degrades in highly mobile networks. (WHY?)
- High routing overhead and path length.
AODV- ADHOC ON DEMAND VECTOR
Ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol uses an on
demand approach for finding routes, that is, a route is established only when it
is required by a source node for transmitting data pack.
 Uses destination sequence numbers to identify the most recent path.
The major difference between AODV and DSR
---DSR uses source routing in which a data packet carries the complete path
to be traversed. However, in AODV, the source node and the intermediate nodes
store the next-hop information corresponding to each flow for data packet
transmission
 The major difference between AODV and other on-demand routing protocols
is that it uses a destination sequence number (DestSeqNum) to determine an
up-to-date path to the destination.
Route Establishment in AODV
Source node floods the RouteRequest packet in the network when a route is not
available for the desired destination.
• DestSeqNum indicates the freshness of the route that is accepted by the source.

Route Request Packet Format

 When an intermediate node receives a Route Request, it either forwards it or prepares a
Route Reply if it has a valid route to the destination.
 The validity of a route at the intermediate node is determined by comparing the sequence
number at the intermediate node with the destination sequence number in the
RouteRequest packet.
 If a RouteRequest is received multiple times, which is indicated by the BcastID-SrcID
pair, the duplicate copies are discarded.
 All intermediate nodes having valid routes to the destination, or the destination node
itself, are allowed to send RouteReply packets to the source.
 Every intermediate node, while forwarding a RouteRequest, enters the previous node
address and its BcastID. A timer is used to delete this entry in case a RouteReply is not
received before the timer expires. This helps in storing an active path at the intermediate
node as AODV does not employ source routing of data packets.
 When a node receives a RouteReply packet, information about the previous node from
which the packet was received is also stored in order to forward the data packet to this
next node as the next hop toward the destination.
1. RREQ from node 1 for node 15
2. Lets assume DtSeq no 3 and SrSeq no.1
3. Routes 2,5,6 receive this packet and check their
routes to node 15
4. If there is no route available, the forward the
RREQ packets to their neighbour.
5. Suppose say nodes 3 and 10 already have a route
with them, then the sequence no is checked.
6. Lets say node3 has sequence no 1 while node 10
has sequence no 3, then the route with node 10 is
considered as its sequence no is 4 which greater than
the source sequence no 1, which implies it has latest
information.
6. So we consider the path, 10-14-15.
7. When RREQ reaches node15, it sends a Route
reply. All the intermediate nodes that recieve the
Route Reply update their table with latest sequence
number
Route Maintenance in AODV
AODV does not repair a broken path locally.
When a link breaks, which is determined by observing the periodical beacons or through
link-level acknowledgments, the end nodes (i.e., source and destination nodes) are notified.
When a source node learns about the path break, it re establishes the route to the destination
if required by the higher layers.
 If a path break is detected at an intermediate node, the node informs the end nodes by
sending an unsolicited RouteReply with the hop count set as ∞.
When a path breaks, for example,
between nodes 4 and 5, both the
nodes initiate RouteError
messages to inform their end
nodes about the link break.

The end nodes delete the

corresponding entries from their
tables. The source node reinitiates
the path finding process with the
new BcastID and the previous
destination sequence number.
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
- routes are established on demand and destination sequence
numbers are used to find the latest route to the destination.
- connection setup delay is less.
 Disadvantages
- old sequence numbers at intermediate nodes can lead to
inconsistent paths.
- Multiple route reply packets for a single rout request packet
increases control overhead.
- Periodic beaconing leads to unnecessary bandwidth consumption.
Difference
Between
Table
Driven
and On
Demand
Routing
Protocols
ZRP –ZONE Routing Protocol
It is a hybrid protocol. That combines the advantages of both table driven and
on-demand routing protocols.
The protocol employes proactive or table driven routing within a local zone
limited in the r- hop neighbourhood of every node
Beyond that zone, it uses a reactive or on-demand routing protocol.
An intra-zone routing protocol (IARP) is used in the zone where a particular
node employs proactive routing.
The reactive routing protocol used beyond this zone is referred to as inter-zone
routing protocol (IERP).
The routing zone of a given node is a subset of the network, within which all
nodes are reachable within less than or equal to zone radius hops.
Figure 7.26 illustrates routing zones of node
8, with r = 1 hop and r = 2 hops. With zone
radius = 2, the nodes 7, 4, 12, and 13 are
interior nodes, whereas nodes 2, 3, 5, 9, 10,
13, and 15 are peripheral nodes (nodes with
the shortest distance equal to the zone
radius).

Each node maintains the information about

routes to all nodes within its routing zone by
exchanging periodic route update packets
(part of IARP). Hence the larger the routing
zone, the higher the update control traffic

The IERP is responsible for finding paths to

the nodes which are not within the routing
zone. IERP effectively uses the information
available at every node's routing zone
 When a node s (node 8 in Figure 7.27) has
packets to be sent to a destination node d (node
15 in Figure 7.27), it checks whether node d is
within its zone. If the destination belongs to its
own zone, then it delivers the
packet directly.

Otherwise, node s bordercasts (uses unicast

routing to deliver packets directly to the border
nodes) theRouteRequest to its peripheral nodes.
In Figure 7.27 node 8 bordercasts RouteRequests
to nodes 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, and 15. If any
peripheral node finds node d to be located within
its routing zone, it sends a RouteReply back to
node s indicating the path;
The criterion for selecting the best path may be the Nodes 10 and 14 find the information about node
shortest path, least delay path, 16 to be available in their intra-zone routing
tables, and hence they originate RouteReply
packets back to node 8
For Broken Links
When an intermediate node in an active path detects a broken link in the path, it performs a
local path reconfiguration in which the broken link is bypassed by means of a short
alternate path connecting the ends of the broken link.
A path update message is then sent to the sender node to inform it about the change in
path. This results in a sub-optimal path between two end points, but achieves quick
reconfiguration in case of link failures.
To obtain an optimal path, the sender reinitiates the global path-finding process after a
number of local reconfigurations
Advantages and Disadvantages
 Advantages
-- ZRP reduces the control overhead compared to the RouteRequest flooding
mechanism employed in on-demand approaches and the periodic flooding of
routing information packets in table-driven approaches.
 Disadvantages
--But in the absence of a query control, ZRP tends to produce higher control
overhead than the aforementioned schemes.
-- This is due to overlapping of nodes' routing zones. The query control must
ensure that redundant or duplicate Route Requests are not forwarded. Also, the
decision on the zone radius has a significant impact on the performance of the
protocol.
THE END