10

2. Literature Survey
2.1 Introduction
Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) are multi hop wireless
networks, in which nodes move and communicate with each other
without any centralized control or base stations [9]. Each node in
MANETs acts as a source transmitting the data packets, as a destination
receiving the packets transmitted by other source and also plays an
additional role as a router, in routing the data packets which are
destined to some other node. The applications of these networks are in
battle field, disaster recovery and emergency rescue operations.
In MANETs nodes are in mobile nature. Hence the topology of the
network frequently changes. By this reason frequent link failures occur
[21]. Therefore providing an efficient and effective routing in MANETs
with limited resources like radios communication range, bandwidth and
power is a challenging task. In recent years, it has received tremendous
amount of attention from researchers, which led to the design and
implementation of several routing protocols.
This chapter provides a brief survey about the related research and
the rest of the chapter is organized as follows. Section 2.2 describes
about the Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Section 2.3 describes about the
Routing in MANETs. Section 2.4 presents the classification of ad hoc
routing protocols. Section 2.5 discuss about the Multicasting in MANETs.

11
Section 2.6 presents the issues and challenges in Multicasting. Section
2.7 describes the classification of Multicast routing protocols. Section 2.8
presents the Multipath routing in MANETs. Section 2.9 presents the
classification of Multipath routing protocols in MANETs. Section 2.10
presents the brief description of selected Multipath routing protocols.
Section 2.11 describes the overview of Network Simulator (NS-2). Finally
a brief summary about this chapter is presented in section 2.12.
2.2 Mobile Ad hoc Networks
There are two variations of wireless mobile communications. The
first one is known as infrastructure wireless networks, where the mobile
node communicates with a base station that is located within its
transmission range (one hop away from the base station). The second one
is infrastructure less wireless network which is known as Mobile Ad hoc
Networks (MANETs) [22].
MANETs consists of fixed or mobile nodes which are associated
without the help of fixed infrastructure or central administration. These
nodes are self-arranged and can be organized on the fly anyplace, any
time to support a particular reason or situation. Two nodes know how to
communicate if they are within the reach of others transmission range; if
not intermediate nodes serve as routers [23, 24].

12
2.3 Routing in MANETs
Routing is defined as the process of finding path from a source to
every destination in the network. There are three main requirements for
designing

ad

hoc

network

routing

protocols

i.e.

Low

overhead,

Adaptiveness and Resilience to loss. In case of low overhead, the routing

protocol requires less number of control messages to transmit each data
packet. Further the size of each control message is also very small.
Hence it conserves bandwidth and battery. For adaptiveness, the routing
protocol needs to be able to adapt to a highly dynamic environment in
which topology and propagation conditions may vary significantly. For
resilience to loss, the routing protocol needs to operate correctly and
efficiently in the presence of packet loss. The packet loss in the ad hoc
network environment is high, especially for multicast and broadcast
packets.
2.4 Classification of ad hoc routing protocols
Ad hoc routing protocols are classified into various types based on
different criteria [8]. Classification is shown in Fig 2.1. Classification is
not commonly restricted and few more protocols fall under other classes.
The routing protocols designed for ad hoc wireless networks are generally
classified into four types based on Routing information update
mechanism, Use of temporal information for routing, Routing topology
and Utilization of specific resources.

13

Fig 2.1 Classification of ad hoc routing protocols

2.4.1 Classification based on routing information update mechanism
Ad hoc wireless network routing protocols are classified into three
types. First category is Proactive or Table-driven routing protocols where
all nodes hold the network topology information in the way of routing
tables from time to time replacing routing information. Second category

14
is Reactive or On-Demand routing protocols where these protocols do not
retain the network topology information. They find the required path
while it is essential by means of link establishment procedure. For this
reason these protocols do not exchange routing information from time to
time. Finally Hybrid routing protocols are the combination of Proactive
and Reactive routing protocols. In this, Nodes within a particular
geographical region are selected inside the routing zone of the specified
node.

Routing inside this zone, a Table-driven method is used. For

nodes which are situated outside this zone, an On-demand method is

used.
2.4.2 Classification based on temporal information
Routing protocols are classified into two main categories. Firstly,
Past temporal information where these protocols use the information
regarding the past status of the wireless links or the status of the links at
the time of routing to build the routing decisions and lastly, Future
temporal information while these protocols use the information regarding
the future status of the wireless links to build the appropriate routing
decisions.
2.4.3 Classification based on routing topology
Routing protocols are classified into two main categories i.e. Flat
topology routing protocols which use flat addressing scheme which are
related to IEEE 802.3 LANs and Hierarchical topology routing protocols
which use the logical hierarchal addressing scheme in the network.

15
2.4.4 Classification based on utilization of specific resources
Routing protocols are classified into two main categories i.e. Power
aware routing protocols which reduce the battery power utilization and
Geographical information assisted routing protocols which uses the geographical information available in the network and also enhances the
performance of routing.
2.5 Multicasting in MANETs
Multicasting performs a vital role in MANETs to support various
applications. It involves the broadcast of a datagram to a group of hosts
recognized by means of a particular group address [25]. A multicast
datagram is distributed to each and every member of its destination host
group through best effort reliability as normal unicast IP datagrams.
In the multicast [26] every node in the network knows how to join
or leave a multicast group at any time. In addition every node in the
network is capable of transmitting data to any multicast group. The
multicast sources need not identify who are the receivers. It should only
know the multicast group address. For efficiency purpose multicast is
different from unicast. The objective of an efficient multicast routing
protocol is to send a duplicate of every packet to all multicast receivers
by duplicating the packet in the network possibly with least number of
times.

16
It can bring down the cost of communication and enhance the
efficiency of the wireless channel while transmitting several copies of the
similar data to multiple recipients. Instead of forwarding data through
multiple unicast, multicasting reduces the channel capacity utilization,
sender and router processing, energy utilization and delivery delay,
which

are

multicasting

considered
offers

as

important

robust

factors

communication

of

MANET.

technique

good

wherever

receivers individual address keep on unknown to the transmitter or

unstable in a clear manner by means of the transmitter [27,28].
The common applications of the MANETs are in regions wherever
dynamic

reconfiguration

is

essential

[22].

It

includes

military,

battlefields, emergency and conferences. In a wireless channel, still it is

more critical to decrease the transmission overhead and utilization of
power. Multicasting enhances the efficiency of the wireless link by
forwarding multiple copies of messages.
2.6 Issues and Challenges in Multicasting
Various characteristics of MANETs make the purpose of multicast
routing protocols highly demanding. However these protocols deal by a
number of issues, which includes dynamic topology, restricted energy
resources, multi-hop topology and hidden terminal problem. There are
eleven important issues of multicast routing protocols [8, 23, 24, 28,].
First, Mobility i.e. the nodes in MANETs are uncontrolled in their

17
movement. Second, Dynamic topology i.e. it is caused by continuous and
unsystematic mobility. Third, Robust i.e. multicast routing protocol must
be robust enough to reply quickly through mobility of the nodes and
must adapt to topological changes to prevent dropping a data packet
throughout the multicast session which creates low packet delivery ratio.
Fourth, Capacity i.e. MANETs have less capacity due to the noise and
obstruction with wireless transmission and multi path fading as
compared to the wired networks. Fifth, Efficiency i.e. multicast routing
protocols are predictable to provide less number of control packets which
transmits through the network as compared to the number of data
packets that reaches their destination. Sixth, Energy Consumption i.e. it
is a critical consideration in a highly mobile environment. In MANETs
nodes depend on limited battery power. Energy saving techniques should
be intended at reducing the total power consumption of each and every
node in the multicast group and at maximizing the multicast life span.
Seventh, Security, it is a major issue in MANETs due to its broadcast
nature. This makes MANETs in risk for spoofing, interference and other
attacks. Eighth, Reliability, it is also important in multicasting as it is
difficult to bring reliable data to group members where topology changes.
Ninth, Scalability i.e. multicast routing protocol must be capable to give
a significant level of service although the network has large number of
nodes. The nondeterministic characteristics for example power, capacity
and mobility etc. shall be taken into account. Tenth, Quality of Service

18
(QoS), it is one of the challenges during scheming algorithms designed for
MANETs. Finally Resource Management, multicast routing protocols
should be able to keep different network resources to attain QoS
requirements.
2.7 Classification of Multicast routing protocols
Multicast protocols are implemented at various layers i.e. MAC
layer, Network layer and Application layer which carry out the specific
purpose for maintaining the multicast communication [29-33]. The
network layer takes care for routing data from end to end i.e. from the
source to destination. The MAC layer takes care to guarantee the data
which correctly delivered to the destination (reliability). The Application
layer takes care to buffer the data locally until all the acknowledgments
(Acks) have been received. The classification of multicast routing
protocols is as shown in Fig 2.2.

19

Fig 2.2 Classification of multicast routing protocols

2.7.1 Network Layer Multicast
In MANETs the design of efficient protocols on the network (IP)
layer [34-55], the idea of multicasting has established a great deal of
attention. In this layer protocols need the support of each and every node
in the network. It involves forwarders to maintain their group state.
Network (IP) layer applies minimum functionality i.e. best-effort unicast
datagram service.
2.7.1.1 Routing Scheme
On the basis of routing information update mechanism for
multicast routing protocols is categorized into three types. First one is

20
Proactive or Table-driven protocols. These protocols preserve up-to-date
multicast routing information among the multicast group members.
These protocols need all nodes to retain one or more tables to store
routing information. Second one is Reactive or On-Demand routing
protocols. These protocols establish the routes simply when demanded
by the source node. If the source node needs multicast routes to a
multicast group then it starts a route discovery process inside the
network. In this, Multicast routes and group memberships are created,
retained and updated on demand. Finally Hybrid routing protocols are
used to eliminate the drawbacks of proactive and reactive mechanisms,
the multicast routing protocols combine the proactive and reactive
approaches at the same time. Within the network this protocol uses the
proactive approach and outside the network this uses the reactive
approach.
2.7.1.2 Initialization approach
On the basis of multicast connectivity multicast routing protocols
are categorized into Source-Initiated approach, Receiver-Initiated and
Hybrid approach. In Source-Initiated approach multicast group is
initiated and maintained by means of source node. The source node
creates a multicast mesh or tree by means of flooding through the Join
Request packet in the entire network. Any receiver node wants to join a
multicast group it replies through a Join Reply packet. In the ReceiverInitiated approach any receiver node would like to join a multicast group,

21
it floods with a Join Request packet in the entire network. Each and
every source of the same multicast group distributes to a single multicast
connection. Some routing protocols may not differ among the source and
receiver, which is used for the initialization of the multicast group, under
this circumstances hybrid approach is reliable.
2.7.1.3 Multicast Topology
On the basis of the construction of routes for the members of the
multicast group, the multicast routing protocols are categorized into four
types i.e. Tree based, Mesh based, Stateless and Hybrid. In Tree-based
approach a single path among the source and destination pair is
established. There are two categories of Tree based approaches namely
Source-Tree-based approach and Shared tree based approach. Inside the
Source-Tree each and every source node establishes a single multicast
tree spanning for each and every member in a group. Generally the path
among the source and every member is not the shortest and in Shared
tree based approach single multicast tree is established for a multicast
group which consists of each and every source node. This tree is rooted
by a node called the core node.
In

Mesh-based

multicast

routing,

mesh

is

constructed

by

connecting a source to each and every receiver in the network. There are
multiple paths involving the source and destination pair. These
redundant paths give more robustness and high packet delivery ratio.

22
However at the same time they bring in the capacity wastage, power
inefficiency and more overhead as a result of duplication of data.
In Hybrid approach it is the combination of Mesh and Tree-based
approaches. This attains both the robustness and efficiency.
In Stateless approach, it is an environment with high mobility
pattern Tree and Mesh based approaches suffer the overhead due to the
creation and maintenance of the multicast tree or mesh. To reduce this,
Stateless approach is introduced [12, 43, 62]. Instead of maintaining the
routing information by means of each and every forwarding node, a
source node clearly declares the destination list in the packet header.
2.7.1.4 Maintenance approach
MANETs suffer the regular link breaks because of the lack of
stability of the nodes. This makes the well organized group maintenance
is mandatory. Maintaining the multicast group can be achieved by either
the Soft-State approach or the Hard-State approach. In Soft-State
approach, the multicast group association and connected routes are
refreshed time to time by flooding of control packets. In the Hard-State
approach, broken links are reconfigured with two different approaches.
First one is Proactive where before the link break occurs, routes are
reconfigured by means of local prediction techniques using GPS or signal
strength and the second one is Reactive, in the reactive approach when

23
the link breaks occurs, routes are reconfigured by means of sending
control packets.
2.7.2 Application Layer
Network layer multicast is the most efficient way to support
multicast. Application layer multicast possesses several features [56-60],
such as (1) it is simple to deploy, (2) intermediate nodes do not have to
maintain group state, (3) creation of a virtual topology and (4) overlay
multicasting.
2.7.3 MAC Layer Multicast (MACLM)
Multicast data packets require to be broadcast over various hops
prior to the packet reaches its destination because wireless links are
prone to errors. Error recovery mechanisms may be incorporated at the
upper layer by implementing an acknowledgement or feedback from
multicast destinations [61]. MAC layer multicasting is to enhance
network efficiency during the execution of positive acknowledgements
and retransmission of packets in support of multicast data transmission.
A reliable as well as effective MAC layer multicast protocol improves the
performance of multicast communication.
2.8 Multipath Routing in MANETs
In MANETs mobile nodes communicate with every node in multi
hop fashion. It means a mobile node transmits a packet to destination
via intermediate nodes. Therefore the availability of every node is equally

24
important; otherwise, the overall performance of the network will be
affected [63]. For this reason and other design constraints, an efficient
routing protocol is essential for MANETs. The design of an efficient
routing protocol for MANETs is an active area of research and it is a
challenging task. Various routing protocols are proposed and these
protocols are broadly classified as proactive or table driven and reactive
or on-demand. In proactive routing protocols mobile nodes update their
routing tables from time to time by means of exchanging routing
information. Due to this, proactive routing protocols create large number
of control messages within the network. For this reason proactive routing
protocols are not suitable for MANETs.
In order to overcome the restrictions of proactive routing protocols,
reactive routing protocols have been proposed for MANETs. In reactive
routing protocols a route is determined while it is needed. Reactive
routing protocols comprise two main mechanisms i.e. route discovery
and route maintenance.
A source node determines a route to a destination by the route
discovery mechanism. A source node finds if there are any topology
changes within the network by means of the route maintenance
mechanism. In the route discovery mechanism a source node uses
flooding mechanism to find all the available paths to a destination. After
all paths are discovered a source node selects a path, which is shortest.

25
The shortest path algorithm is not a good choice for MANETs [64-67].
While the shortest path algorithm is used, nodes which are located at the
center of a network carry more traffic as compared to nodes which are
situated at the perimeter of the same network. Especially when multiple
connections are used in the network, the wireless links located at the
center of the network carry more traffic and therefore it gets congestion.
This kind of congestion problem affects the performance of the network.
Because of the nodes movement, the shortest path may break. However
communication through a wireless medium is inherently not reliable and
is also causes link errors. To overcome the restrictions of the shortest
path routing protocols, researchers suggested multi path routing.
2.9 Classification of Multipath routing protocols
Multipath routing protocols can be broadly classified as (a) Delay
aware multi path routing protocols [68-72],(b) Reliable multi path routing
protocols [73-76], (c) Minimum overhead multi path routing protocols[7782], (d) Energy efficient multi path routing protocols [83,84] and (e)
Hybrid multi path routing protocols [85-86]. In addition to these routing
protocols this thesis confines its attempt to those routing protocols that
are created from the reactive routing protocols in the same way as DSR
and AODV. The classification of the multipath routing protocols as
shown in Fig 2.3. As shown in this figure, Split multipath routing (SMR)
[87], Multipath source routing (MSR) [85], Robust multipath source
routing (RMPSR) [86], Cluster based multipath dynamic source routing

26
(CMDSR) [88] and Disjoint multipath source routing(DMPSR) [81] are
designed

through

modified

DSR

protocol.

Similarly

Node-disjoint

multipath routing (NDMR) [89], Multipath AODV(AODVM) [90], Multipath

AODV with path diversity (AODVM/PD) [79], Multipath AODV with path
selection (AODVM-PSP) [91] and Split-n-save multipath routing [68] are
designed by modified way of the AODV protocol.

Fig 2.3 Classification of Multipath Routing Protocols

2.10 Brief description of selected Multipath Routing Protocols
2.10.1

Node-Disjoint Multipath Routing (NDMR) Protocol

The improved version of AODV is Node disjoint Multipath routing

protocol. But NDMR discovers multiple node-disjoint paths by using less
overhead packets compared to the AODV protocol. Here there is no
common node in the node disjoint path and no common link in the link-

27
disjoint path. The major concentration of NDMR [89] protocol is on the
configuration of a disjoint path. It is accomplished by means of a route
discovery mechanism. An intermediate node report the hop number of
the first request in place of purely discarding a duplicate request
message. When an intermediate node receives additional requests from
the same source, it checks the number of hops recorded in the route
request packet as that of an earlier recorded number of hops. If the
number of hops of the request packet is greater than the earlier recorded
number of hops then the intermediate node rejects this request packet,
unless the node adds its address in the request packet and broadcasts it
to its neighbors. In this protocol, a destination node has the task of
selecting disjoint paths and to send a reply to a source.
An Example of node-disjoint and link-disjoint path is shown in Fig
2.4. Two node-disjoint paths are shown as P(A1, A2, . . . , An, D) and
P(B1, B2, . . . , Bm, D). In these paths, there is no common node. On the
other hand, link-disjoint paths are shown as P(C1, C2, . . . ,Cn, D) and
P(E1, E2, . . . , Em, D). In link disjoint path, multipath routing only is not
good enough. At the same time of selecting a path the stability of a route
must be considered. Link disjoint path is an improved version of DSR
protocol. In link disjoint path the probability of a route break depends on
path disjointness. Node disjoint path is less liable to break compared to a
link-disjoint path.

28

Fig 2.4 Illustration of disjoint paths (a) Node disjoint (b) Link disjoint
2.10.2

Split Multipath Routing (SMR) Protocol

This protocol establishes and uses multiple paths of maximally

disjoint nature, commencing from source to destination [87]. It is
analogous to any reactive multipath routing protocol. Herein multiple
routes are discovered on demand and opt for the routes with the shortest
delay. A node requests to send a packet to a destination, if it does not
identify the route then it floods a Route request (RREQ) packet into the
network. As a result of this flooding several duplicate RREQ packets
reaches

the

destination

along

with

several

different

paths.

The

destination wants to choose multiple disjoint paths to send the Route

reply (RREP) packet. Unlike the conventional routing protocols such as
DSR and AODV, the intermediate nodes in SMR are not permitted to
send back RREPs still if they have the route to the destination [42].
Destination node can only make a decision on the strength of maximally
disjoint multiple paths from all of its acknowledged RREQ packets. In the
situation where intermediate nodes reply back, it is not possible for the

29
destination node to maintain path of the routes forwarded to the source.
As a replacement for dropping all duplicate RREQs, all nodes forward
those RREQ packets that arrive using a dissimilar link from the first
RREQ packet and that contain a hop count lower than the first RREQ
packet. The destination node selects the first received RREQ packet as
the route with the shortest delay. It directly sends an RREP back and
minimizes the route latency. To establish the maximal disjoint path to
the already replied route it waits for further time to discover all the
possible routes. In some cases there may be in excess of one maximal
disjoint route; as a result the shortest hop distance route is selected.
2.11 Overview of Network Simulator (NS-2)
The proposed protocol evaluations are based on the simulation tool
called the Network Simulator (NS2) [92]. An event driven network
simulator NS2 is developed by the University of California at Berkeley.
NS2 can be used to simulate a wide variety of network protocols, traffic
sources. It also supports a wide variety of static and dynamic routing
protocols. NS2 can also be used to implement multicast on demand
routing protocols and it also supports the multipath routing protocols.
NS2 is a part of the VINT (Virtual Inter Network test bed) project that
developed the tools which are used for display of simulation results,
analysis. In NS2 converters are used to convert the network topologies
generated in to NS formats.

30
Network Simulator is an Object Oriented Tool command language
(OTcl). It is a script interpreter which contains a simulation event
scheduler and network component object libraries in addition to network
setup (plumbing) module libraries. To arrange and run a simulation
network, user must write an OTcl script that commences an event
scheduler, which establishes the network topology using the network
objects. In addition plumbing functions are available in the library and
instructs the source to start and stop the broadcasting packets via the
event scheduler. The reason of network plumbing is, plumbing of feasible
data paths between the network objects by means of locating the
neighbor pointer of an object towards the address of suitable object.
While a user requests to create a new network object, it can be done by
means of creating an object by writing a new object or by creating a
composite object from the object library and also plumb the data path via
the object.
The main component is the event scheduler. An event scheduler
holds path of simulation time and fires each and every event in the event
queue organized for the current time by means of invoking suitable
network components. Timers use an event scheduler which is similar to
that of delay. The difference is that timer computes a time value which is
connected with a packet and performs a suitable action related to the
packet. When a particular time expires it does not simulate a delay.

31
Network Simulator (NS2) uses both OTcl and C++. NS disconnects
the data path implementation from control path. To reduce the packet
and event processing time NS2 uses the event scheduler. The basic
network component objects inside the data path are written and
compiled by using the C++. These compiled objects are available to the
OTcl interpreter by means of an OTcl linkage that generates an identical
OTcl object used for each of the C++ objects and also generates the
control functions. The configurable variables identified by the C++ object
which should be performed as member functions and also the member
variables of the related OTcl object. Like this the controls of the C++
objects are distributed to OTcl. The objects in C++ does not require to be
restricted in a simulation or internally used by means of another object
which does not require to be linked to OTcl.
When a simulation run is completed, NS generates one or more
text based output files which contains detailed simulation output data in
the OTcl script. This data can be used for simulation analysis or input
towards the graphical simulation display tool is called as Network
AniMator (NAM). NAM consists of a graphical user interface and also a
display speed controller and it is used to record various events. It can
also present information such as throughput and the number of packet
drops at each link graphically.

32
2.12 Summary
This chapter presents a brief description of MANETS, the
importance of multicast and multipath routing in MANETS, classification
of multicast and multipath routing protocols. In the following chapters,
to compare schematically the various popular protocols proposed by
earlier researchers as well as the protocols proposed in this thesis are
simulated by using a tool called as Network Simulator (NS2).

This

chapter also presented a detailed description about the Network

Simulator (NS2).